Ángel Correa’s hard road: heart op to world glory, now at River | OneFootball

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

It is impossible to understand River’s #10—the one who first dazzled with his feints against Argentinos and who showed judgment and talent in the first leg against Independiente Santa Fe—without understanding his intimate relationship with football. 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 might consider nothing more than a piece of inflated leather was, for Correa, a crystal ball through which he tried to see a prosperous future. A different one. “I got my family out of poverty: we didn’t have enough to eat,” recalled the star whose father used to take him to play youth football 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 Angelito. He was only from the ’95 class. Born on March 9, 31 years ago. Long years. Hard years.

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

Football was an escape.The ball, his only toy.“ One day you’re going to be a star,” his father had predicted. What if he was right? What if those feints, those close-control dribbles, 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. He did not know that years later he would leave for Atlético Madrid for US$8 million, nor that he would return to Argentine football to play in Núñez for a fee almost double that investment. There was fear. There was sadness, homesickness, a knot in his stomach. Correa missed home. He missed it a lot. So much that he thought about going back. He even ran away from the boarding house that was then located beneath the stands. But he came back. “I had food there,” he would explain years later.

In Boedo, “the nutritionist told me I was malnourished; each of my teammates got one meal pack, and I got two because I was already skinny when I arrived,” as Correa himself revealed. A star who settled in and shone in the youth ranks. When he started earning stipends, all of it went home, to his mother, the one 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 was part of 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 exam 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 brilliant goals against Boca and had also been crucial in San Lorenzo’s qualification for the Copa Libertadores quarterfinals, a tournament the club would win in 2014 before his departure, not on the best terms: in his own words, he felt mistreated by the board at a delicate moment.

As a result of that 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 stars and former River player Giovanni Simeone as top scorer. A key surname in the life of the #10: father Cholo was the one who backed him when the board was thinking of loaning him out. And he was right: 465 matches, 88 goals, 64 assists, and three titles would prove him right.

The ball was already rewarding Correa. At club level and, in parallel, with the national team as well: 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. It was the first step in a run 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 related to 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 because I absolutely wanted to be at Wembley. After the match I got a little scared, and so did my family, and I spoke up. The doctor told me that it could have gotten infected, that it could have been serious: my scar had opened up...,” the forward would later reveal after being treated.

At the end of that year, in the span of a week, he went through a whirlwind of emotions: he went from being left out of the 26-man squad for Qatar 2022 to being called up in an emergency 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 the pitch at River.

And in Lusail he reached the very top. What he had dreamed of every late afternoon in Las Flores. The World Cup alongside 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.

At the same time, though, deep down 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 give her strength,” he told Goal in March 2023. In her honor, in fact, the Rosario-born player had shaved his head and taken a photo with her during the treatment.

In April of that same year, Marcela passed away. Angelito was struck by immense pain, now the father of Lola, Luz, and Lía from his relationship with Sabrina Di Marzo. He had managed to transform the reality, the everyday life, of the woman who had given everything for him. Who had tucked him in. Who had taken care of him. The one who made him the best milanesas after he scored goals. The one who chose to leave Rosario to receive 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 a change of scenery. Moving to Mexico after a decade with the Colchoneros. “I leave with the pride of having represented you on the pitch, with my heart and until the very last minute,” he said before stopping for a season at Tigres. And then returning to Argentina. With the challenge of lighting it up at a club that had already enjoyed his first dribbles. The one that handed him a #10 shirt heavy with history. The one that trusts him and his partner Almada to bring it back to life after two long years without titles. No one better than him to fight with the ball at his feet.

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