Antonio Serradilla: From Losing an Eye to Overcoming a Terrorist Attack to Winning the Handball Champions League

“It’s my first title,” shouted handball player Antonio Serradilla this Sunday in Cologne. And it was a Championship. The great personal epic of this 26-year-old from Seville, a defensive specialist for Magdeburg, who has faced numerous scares in life. In 2021, he had his right eye removed due to a tumor, and six months ago he narrowly escaped an attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg (Germany), where five people died and around 200 were injured.

Serradilla immersed himself in handball, determined to compete at the highest level, and no one dissuaded him from that idea. Four years ago, when doctors detected choroidal melanoma and warned him that returning to the highest level would be difficult, he insisted on trying. He underwent surgery (the alternative was a radiation treatment lasting months, with a significant risk of losing his vision), and four months later he was back on the court. At that time, he was playing for Ciudad de Logroño, after stints in Guadalajara and Montequinto in Seville, and had played 14 matches with the Spanish national team.

He returned with special glasses to protect his left eye and was forced to adapt to the evident limitations he faced. He had lost about half of his peripheral vision, a significant obstacle in a sport that has accelerated the speed of play, where, as a defensive specialist, threats multiply from all sides. “The hardest part is controlling where the ball and the opponent are at the same time,” he told this newspaper shortly after returning to the courts. “I can’t look at two points, so I have to keep turning my head. That’s when I miss crucial moments. I coordinate with my teammates, who call out where the pivot is. I also watch videos to anticipate what will happen,” he added. Over time, he learned that frequently touching opponents was a good way to gauge distances, and as with everything, practice and experience refined his method.

“The body gets used to it”

In those days, he didn’t settle for simply rejoining the team and staying in Liga Asobal, which was already significant given the doctors’ warnings; he aspired to leap into Europe, elevate the level of challenge, and be part of the national team. He achieved the first part quickly. In 2023, he was signed by the Norwegian club Elverum, with whom he played in last season’s European League, the second continental competition, serving as a springboard for the German Bundesliga giant Magdeburg to capture him a year ago.

The ascent was considerable, and it hasn’t been an easy season for him. He struggled for minutes until he became crucial in the F4 this weekend in Cologne. In the semifinals, he defeated Barcelona, and in the final, he took down Füchse Berlin, featuring star player Mathias Gidsel (26-32). In goal, the Spanish player Sergey Hernández excelled with 18 saves and a 42% effectiveness rate as the last line of defense, with Serradilla as the main protagonist, a sevillano and Sevilla fan (the club congratulated him), who reached the pinnacle of his career, despite receiving a red card in the second half. It was, above all, his great achievement. “I’ve gotten used to this. The body gets used to it,” he shared hours later on El Larguero before missing the bus back to the city of the club.

Tragedy in Magdeburg

After the summer, he will join Stuttgart, also in the Bundesliga, having completed this Sunday a career full of twists and a year marked by significant scares. On the eve of last Christmas, he was walking with his girlfriend through a Magdeburg market when a person sped through in a car, hitting everyone in his path. They were just a few meters away. The attack resulted in five deaths. His girlfriend, as he recounted in an interview with XL Semanal, can’t forget the image of an older man with shards of glass embedded in his head. And he remembers a man with a broken leg holding his son in his arms.

A tragedy they both escaped due to the unpredictable nature of life. This Sunday, Serradilla erased almost all his thorns at once. The only thing left is the national team.