Two Owonos, One Name, One Death: The Story Buried Under CF Can Vidalet's Right-Back's Voice

On Saturday evening, I was on my veranda in Sylhet following the scores from Spain's lower leagues on my phone. Suddenly a name surfaced on the screen — Michel Owono. Beside it, another name — Jesús Owono. Both from Equatorial Guinea, both sharing a surname. One has had the shadow of death cast over his life, the other has had a flood of hatred pour into his inbox. The story stuck between these two men is football journalism's oldest trap: turning one person's grief into an arrow of blame pointed at another. The story involves two separate incidents. The first is the death of Jesús de Miguel, who played for CD Tenerife. The second is the confusion that arose around the name of goalkeeper Jesús Owono, which eventually reached CF Can Vidalet right-back Michel Owono. Without club, league, medical, or authority sources, nothing that is being said about the cause of death can be independently verified. In this gap of uncertainty, a chain of mistaken identity was born: one goalkeeper, one right-back, one surname, one country. I've been writing about football for thirteen years, from the corridors of Bangladesh Betar radio to the present — and I've seen this pattern repeat. When a death occurs, journalism quickly finds a character to blame. 'Reckless tackle' or 'dangerous play' — these phrases sound neutral, but they are not a judge's verdict, they are a narrative we create. If a player is not charged, if a disciplinary committee issues no sanction, then creating a shadow of blame in a reporter's pen means filing a lawsuit with our own hands. Abuse received by Michel Owono was brief, clear, and where the appeal for resistance there is visibly his own voice. He said people are mistaking him because of his surname. But the slurs he received are racist — and this is where the article does not connect the dots: is the confusion vector purely lexical? Two Owonos come from the same country, the same language and culture. Does a shared surname mean the same person? In Spain, this kind of narrowness regarding players of Equatorial Guinean origin is not new — players of African descent at small clubs like CF Can Vidalet often get pulled into the networks of bigger teams simply because of name association. The death report itself has problems. In the article this analysis is based on, the first information point says 'Jesús de Miguel,' while the sixth point says 'Miguel de Jesús.' In a story whose entire value depends on avoiding the wrong name, if the name itself gets flipped, then the problem is not just the reader's error but the editor's. I've fallen into this trap repeatedly in my career — in 2026, when I wrote the 14-second story about the Japan-Belgium match, I had to verify every single second. In football, names, timelines, and identity details are the biggest tools of weak journalism. The giant problem is sourcing. The entire article has one source — the affected party's post. No CF Can Vidalet, no CD Tenerife, no RFEF, no police, no platform. 'A quantity of messages' — no number. Five messages and an organised campaign are not the same thing. Whether any legal process, investigation, or disciplinary measure has been taken — these questions are absent. I know sports magazine editors easily fall into these traps today because the headline comes from a statement, and the rest is arranged around that statement. This is 'X said Y' journalism, not real reporting of events. Interestingly, the article's headline mentions 'attacks by aficionados.' But there is no evidence anywhere that the alleged senders were fans, or fans of any particular club. The most-read line has no source at its root. I've seen this kind of story from Sylhet — when a player wants to speak against his own club's fans, he becomes defensive, and journalists often use the word 'fans' as a safe umbrella. But here it is as dangerous as it is sensitive — blaming a group and blaming a culture are not the same. One thing I see clearly: two different types of harm are tangled in this story, and if they are not separated, readers will think a death and a harassment campaign are of the same order. Before blaming Jesús Owono, we need to know — what was the cause of death, has any player been charged, and who or what process first raised this allegation. On the other hand, Michel Owono has been the target of hatred — this is a unique, separate truth, proven by nothing other than his own statement and (if any) platform screenshots. But one thing is undeniable: the messages he received used racist language — this is not just a problem of a wrong name, it is a systemic problem. I want to keep a micro-timing note in this article. If the dates of the death, the start of the harassment, and the statement's release are known, it will become clear whether this is a one-off incident or an ongoing campaign. An absence of a date here means the risk of presenting a frozen image as a current event — journalism's greatest injustice. In my experience, when we mistake a single moment of an incident for the whole story, we get cornered. Theoretically, to rewrite this article correctly, first the death and the harassment must be separated. For the death, a statement from the club, league, or medical authority is needed. For the harassment, Michel Owono's statement and evidence (screenshots, platform reports) will be the primary basis. Instead of 'fans,' we should write 'unknown individuals' until evidence is available. The phrase 'reckless play' must be removed until a referee or disciplinary report confirms it. This list is a plan for evidence-based reconstruction for Spanish football journalists — where players' names and national records must be absolutely accurate, because the story's core subject is 'mistaken identity.' Last week, I went to a club field in Sylhet where teenagers were practising in the scorching afternoon heat. Sitting beside the field, a coach said, 'When a name is wrong, people misunderstand, and when they misunderstand, they blame.' Football teaches us that a ball is like a name — if it goes to the wrong place, chaos follows. Jesús Owono and Michel Owono are right now those two balls, one placed where the other should be. Death is a tragedy, harassment is a crime — keeping them from blurring together is our first duty, and the second is justice for the person who bore the wrong name. I'm still thinking — that right-back for CF Can Vidalet, born in Malabo, did he ever think his surname would one day pull him off the right flank and into a battle outside the field? Football goes on outside the pitch too, we know. But when grief and hatred touch each other on that field, we must learn to ask: who is actually mistaking whom, and why? The answer may never come, but keeping the question alive is journalism's job.