Rodolfo Arruabarrena says football stress triggered his diabetes diagnosis

The former Boca Juniors manager has spoken publicly about living with diabetes, attributing his diagnosis to the pressure of elite football despite having no known hereditary history.

Rodolfo Arruabarrena has added a personal dimension to a diagnosis that many footballers and coaches keep private. Speaking to Crónica, the former Boca Juniors manager said he has diabetes and believes stress, rather than genetics, played the central role in his case, even though his brother has lived with the condition for more than 30 years. “No tengo antecedentes hereditarios. Sí bien tengo un hermano que tiene diabetes hace más de treinta años, lo mío fue por estrés”, he said.

Arruabarrena’s remarks sit within a wider conversation about how pressure, routine and high performance can shape health. The Argentine coach, who spent years in the demands of elite football as a player and later as a manager, said the strain of the job can be relentless. In Crónica’s reporting, he described a career in which he experienced repeated peaks of tension, including the intensity of match days and the constant scrutiny that comes with leading major clubs.

His comments echo those of Cristian Lucchetti, the former Boca goalkeeper and now Banfield’s sporting director, who also spoke to Crónica about living with diabetes during a playing career. Lucchetti said the illness was detected when he was 25 and described the pressure of trying to compete at the highest level while managing a chronic condition. He said his own case was shaped by both family history and the stresses of modern football, including the expectation to play through discomfort.

Lucchetti also argued that his condition was aggravated by repeated injections and the physical demands of staying on the pitch. He said he had spent nearly a year being injected every weekend so he could keep playing, and later advised athletes to avoid over-reliance on quick fixes when a more natural recovery is possible. His experience underlined a broader concern in sport: the temptation to postpone proper treatment in order to remain available.

Arruabarrena’s diagnosis, then, is not just a personal health story but part of a wider pattern in which stress, discipline and medical care intersect. Crónica noted that diabetes is a chronic illness marked by high blood sugar and that it can go unnoticed for years, even though proper monitoring and treatment allow many patients to live normally. That makes early checks especially important, and it also shows why the condition can affect people who appear otherwise fit, active and carefully managed. In that sense, Arruabarrena and Lucchetti are reminders that elite sport offers no immunity from disease, and that pressure can leave its mark long after the final whistle.