Footballer Paraskevas Antzas dies at 49

Footballer Paraskevas Antzas passed away at the age of 49.

The tragic news of his death became known on Monday morning (May 25). According to reports, Paraskevas Antzas breathed his last at the hospital in Drama, where he had been hospitalized in the ICU. In recent years, he had been battling ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or motor neuron disease), the same illness that affected Stephen Hawking and had confined him to a wheelchair.

Antzas played as a central defender, and his football career began with Pandramaikos in Greece’s Third Division in 1993. In 1995, he signed with Xanthi, and three years later, in 1998, he transferred to Olympiacos. Until 2003, he made 82 league appearances for the club, 18 appearances in the Champions League, and two in the UEFA Cup, scoring one goal.

In the middle of the 2003–04 season, he left Olympiacos despite being a key player for both the club and the Greek national team, which had qualified for the Euro 2004 finals in Portugal. At first, he announced his retirement from football for serious family reasons.

Eventually, he spent the remainder of the 2003–04 season playing for Doxa Drama, while over the following three years he once again wore the Xanthi jersey.

He returned to Olympiacos in 2007 and remained there for two more years, until 2009, when he retired from professional football for good. On May 5, 2009, three days after the Greek Cup final against AEK, he announced his retirement through Olympiacos’ official website.

During his career, he won seven league titles — five of them consecutive — and three Greek Cups.

What is ALS?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare degenerative disease that causes progressive muscle paralysis. Patients initially experience muscle spasms or weakness in a limb, followed by speech difficulties.

According to the Mayo Clinic, because the disease affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control movement, patients gradually lose the ability to speak, eat, walk, and breathe independently.

The disease usually does not affect mental function in its early stages, although in some cases cognitive decline may also occur.

There is currently no cure for ALS, and according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, life expectancy after diagnosis is typically three to five years, although some patients live for decades.

Why it is considered incurable

ALS is considered incurable because, to date, no single definitive cause has been identified for the disease. In the vast majority of cases — approximately 90% to 95% — the condition appears sporadically, without a clear genetic or environmental factor explaining its onset. The absence of a clearly defined cause makes it difficult to develop targeted treatments capable of stopping the disease at its root.

Another critical factor is that motor neurons — the nerve cells responsible for controlling muscle movement — do not regenerate. Once destroyed, their loss is permanent. Modern medicine still does not have an effective way to restore or replace these neurons.

Today, there are treatments that can somewhat slow the progression of the disease and improve patients’ quality of life; however, none can cure ALS or reverse the neurodegenerative process.

Besides Dane, other well-known figures diagnosed with ALS include Aaron Lazar, John Driskell Hopkins, Eric Stevens, Joe Bonsall, Roberta Flack, Kenneth Mitchell, and Stephen Hawking.