Based on your post, I went digging and found this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballers_who_died_while_playing https://en.wikipedia.org/

Based on your post, I went digging and found this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballers_who_died_while_playing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballer... Year 2021 does look like it could stand out more than other years, but I would like to see the deaths normalized by the number of matches that year. Presumably, there have been fewer football matches during the pandemic, which would make 2021 stand out even more if it is true.