Stiliyan Petrov diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

[nigel-harps1954]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17566188

Horrible news for a man at the height of his career.

Aston Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia, the West Midlands club have announced.
The condition was diagnosed following tests after the Bulgaria international, 32, developed a fever following Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.

[SwanVsDalton]

Terrible news. Seems genuinely to be very nice guy. Hope he makes it - he definitely has the attitude and heart to do so.

Tremendously underrated player too - classy on the ball and has a presence which is very difficult to replace.

[DeLorean]

The picture of the poor guy is kind of hard to digest but things seem to be improving for him. What a difference the experience of himself and Richard Dunne would have made to the young Villa side ths season.

Stiliyan Petrov: I'm lucky to be alive after leukaemia

[geysir]

I was expecting to see a gaunt and shrivelled figure but I thought he looked quite good considering, maybe a bit dark around the eyes.
That 19th minute support thing is really special.

[DeLorean]

They changed the picture from earlier, they had one more like these

[geysir]

When Bulgaria were at USA 94, their goalie wore a wig, he had lost all his hair. I remember he said something to the effect that sudden loss of hair was a common enough occurrence in Bulgaria after the Chernobyl disaster. Petrov has no history of cancer in his family. The Bulgarian team doctor is in no doubt that Petrov, like many children in his area, was a victim of exposure to excessive radiation levels, further aided by inaction to destroy radiated local foodstuffs.

[DeLorean]

I remember that alright in 1994. He saved a couple of penalties against Mexico. Your man Letchkov could have done with a wig that time too!

[DeLorean]

Petrov has retired from football.

A sad day for him but he speaks positively and has bigger fish to fry in his real life, so to speak.

[Junior]

Short interview Stan did with CelticTV recently.

A brave guy and someone who comes across as very grateful for the gift he was given. Also, someone who seems to have his priorities in order and family is coming first.

I will always remember his youthful box to box running and great goals whilst at Celtic Park, didnt see that much of him once he moved on to Villa but its obvious how highly the Villa fans think of him.

Best of luck to him.

[Junior]

And a few of those goals I refer to (and a few dodgy hair styles too!)

[DeLorean]

I will always remember his youthful box to box running and great goals whilst at Celtic Park, didnt see that much of him once he moved on to Villa but its obvious how highly the Villa fans think of him

I'm pretty sure he got a lot of grief off the Villa fans for the first year or two when he wasn't setting the world on fire. Amazing the extent to which he won them over.

[geysir]

His best football was with Celtic for 6 or 7 seasons. In that strong team he was one of the best. Nice to have Henrik Larsson in your team providing the assists for you, as seen in that You Tube tribute. The surprise was that he took a couple of seasons to get his game going with Villa, he was more than good enough for that standard.