How the death of Jayden Adams shook a community: ‘Being on the pitch was his happy place’ | Soccer

For Jayden Adams, the South Africa midfielder who died this month at the age of 25, football was a “safe space”. Those words, used by Adams’s junior coach Steve Barker at his memorial service last Thursday, tell you everything you need to know about his life beyond the pitch.

Adams’s battles were bestowed on him almost from birth. Though he was born into newly democratic South Africa,…