Ángel Correa's hard road: heart surgery to Argentina glory, now at River | OneFootball

When he walked into the operating room in New York at 19, Ángel Correa did not do so afraid of death. “I wasn’t scared because I was going to meet my dad, and I missed him so much.” What did unsettle him, though, was that no doctor had assured him that after undergoing surgery for a benign tumor in the left ventricle, he would be able to play soccer again.

It is impossible to get to know River’s #10 — the one who first began dazzling with his feints against Argentinos and who showed composure and talent in the first leg against Independiente Santa Fe — without understanding his intimate relationship with soccer. A sport that meant hope for Ángel, who learned to crawl, walk, and dribble in the tough Las Flores neighborhood, in southwest Rosario.

What intellectuals may consider nothing more than a mere piece of inflated leather, for Correa it was a crystal ball through which he tried to see a prosperous future. A different one. “I lifted my family out of poverty: we didn’t have enough to eat,” said the star whose dad used to take him to play youth soccer at Club 6 de Mayo. The same place where his mother had to show her ID to settle a dispute between coaches from two different age groups who were fighting over having Angelito on their team. He was born in ’95, after all. Born on March 9, 31 years ago. Long years. Hard years.

As Charly García once metaphorically told Susana Giménez in a TV interview living room, success came to Correa right after the punches. His childhood in Santa Fe was harsh. He lost his father at 10 and, at 12, one of his eight siblings. Marcela, a fighter who stood by him every step of the way and whom he honors in one of his many tattoos, managed the food supplies, went hungry herself, or tricked her stomach with maté cocido just so the kids would have something to eat once a day. Many days followed a routine that included walking into the city to sell flowers with his mother, opening taxi doors to earn tips, or knocking on doors to ask for donations.

Soccer was an escape.The ball, his only toy.“One day you’re going to be a star,” his father had predicted. And what if he was right? What if those feints, those close-control moves, one day became the means to transform his family’s life?

When Jorge García, a legendary scout with a keen eye, took him to San Lorenzo’s youth academy, Ángel Sr.’s prophecy began to come true. The kid, who had also been on River’s radar as a youngster, did not know it yet. Not that years later he would go to Atlético Madrid for US$8 million, nor that he would return to Argentine soccer to play in Núñez for a fee worth nearly double that investment. There was fear. There was sadness, homesickness, a knot in his stomach. Correa missed home. He missed it badly. So much so that he thought about going back. He even ran away from the boarding house that at the time was located underneath the stands. But he always came back. “At least there I had food,” he would explain years later.

At Boedo, “the nutritionist told me I was malnourished; each of my teammates got one meal pack, and I got two, because I arrived already skinny,” as Correa himself revealed. A star who settled in and dazzled in the youth ranks. When he started receiving stipends, it all went back home, to his mother, who suffered from Angelito’s absence from afar but also understood that he was taking steps toward his dream at the club where he even played a part in a historic moment: then-cardinal Jorge Bergoglio gave him the sacrament of Confirmation two years before being elected Supreme Pontiff. The same Pope Francis who received him in a private audience at the Vatican in 2015, a year after the surgery for the tumor detected during his medical examination with Atlético.

By then, Correa had already made his debut under Juan Antonio Pizzi, with whom he won his first professional title in 2013; he had already scored two stunning goals against Boca and had also been crucial in San Lorenzo’s qualification for the Copa Libertadores quarterfinals, which the club would go on to win in 2014 before his departure, not on the best of terms: by his own account, he felt mistreated by the club’s board at a delicate moment.

As a result of the medical procedure he underwent in the United States, which allowed him to sign for Atleti, Correa was out for 235 days. His comeback came on January 15, 2015: he was part of Humbertito Grondona’s Argentina U-20 debut in the South American U-20 Championship, which Argentina would win with Angelito as one of its standout players and former River man Giovanni Simeone as top scorer. A key surname in the life of #10: father Cholo was the one who backed him when the board was thinking about sending him out on loan. And he was right: 465 matches, 88 goals, 64 assists, and three titles proved him so.

The ball was already rewarding Correa. At club level and, at the same time, also with the national team: four months after the first-round elimination at the U-20 World Cup, he made his senior debut under Gerardo Martino and scored his first goal in the 7-0 win over Bolivia. A first step in a career of 28 appearances and two more goals, mainly as part of a historic cycle: Lionel Scaloni’s. The coach who always praised him for his versatility. With good reason: Correa always gave everything to be there. So much so that, in addition to celebrating the 2021 Copa América, in 2022 he even ignored discomfort caused by his heart surgery so as not to miss the 2022 Finalissima.

“For days I had been seeing the wire (from the surgery) that was about to come out of my chest, but I didn’t tell the doctor anything because I absolutely wanted to be at Wembley. After the match I got a little scared, and so did my family, and I let it out. The doctor told me that it could have gotten infected, that it could have been serious: my scar had reopened...,” the forward would reveal after being treated.

At the end of that year, in the span of a week he went through a roller coaster of emotions: he went from being left out of the 26-man squad for Qatar 2022 to being called up as an emergency replacement to fly to the Persian Gulf. Fate and its metaphorical twists meant he was contacted while playing a casual kickabout with friends. Among them was Thiago Almada, his “little brother,” with whom he now shares a team at River.

And in Lusail he reached the very top. What he had dreamed of every evening in Las Flores. The World Cup next to Lionel Messi. The trophy, the lights. The glory. The recognition he had earned as a youth player at San Lorenzo and already had in Madrid was now international.

Yet at the same time, privately, Correa was carrying a heavy burden: his mother Marcela had been undergoing cancer treatment for some time. “She is our strength. Even though she is fighting, she is still with us. She fills me with pride, and we fill her with strength,” he told Goal in March 2023. In her honor, in fact, the Rosario native had shaved his head and taken a photo with her during treatment.

In April of that same year, Marcela passed away. An immense pain went through Angelito, now the father of Lola, Luz, and Lía from his relationship with Sabrina Di Marzo. He had managed to transform that woman’s reality, her everyday life — the woman who had given everything for him. The one who had tucked him in. The one who had taken care of him. The one who made the best milanesas for him after he scored goals. The one who chose to leave Rosario to seek treatment in Madrid, close to the then-#10 and symbol of an era at Atlético. It was a devastating blow for a talent known for his feints and his smile.

Now a father, mature and focused on his career, in 2025 he chose to seek a change of scenery. Moving to Mexico after a decade with the Colchoneros. “I leave with the pride of having represented you on the field, with my heart and until the very last minute,” he said before making a stop for one season at Tigres. And then returning to Argentina. With the challenge of shining at a club that had already enjoyed his first dribbles. The one that gave him a #10 heavy with history. The one that trusts him and his partner Almada to revive itself after two long years without titles. No one better than him to put up a fight with the ball at his feet.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.