A Uruguayan footballer has died aged 27, five days after collapsing on the pitch during a match in Brazil. Juan Izquierdo was playing in a Copa Libertadores match in Sao Paulo when he suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday.

His club Nacional announced his death on platformwn 'X', saying they were "in mourning for his irreplaceable loss".

"It is a deep pain and shock in our hearts that the Club Nacional de Football announces the death of our beloved player Juan Izquierdo", says the club's announcement, pwrcjellw KosovaPress.

The defender died on Tuesday at Sao Paulo's Albert Einstein Hospital, which said he had suffered "cardiorespiratory arrest related to his cardiac arrhythmia". Doctors said on Monday that Izquierdo was in critical neurological care and on a ventilator, after an earlier statement that he had shown "a progression of damage to his brain and an increase in intracranial pressure".

Izquierdo was in his second spell with Nacional after helping them win their first league title in more than a century in 2023.

Alejandro Dominguez, president of South American soccer's governing body CONMEBOL, said the continent's soccer community was in mourning.

Uruguayan media said he left behind his wife and two-year-old daughter.