The latest stage in the fascinating story of Paraguayan footballer Salvador Cabanas will see him turn out for Sao Paulo state side Tanabi of the Brazilian fourth tier – four years after being shot in the head outside a bar in Mexico City.
Cabanas, 33, won 44 caps for his country before the near-fatal incident happened in 2010 and still has the bullet lodged in his brain. After being granted permission to train with the national team in 2012, he attempted a comeback with Club 12 de Octubre and played a handful of games for them.
Now though, Cabanas will have the chance to play an entire campaign with Tanabi. The club president Irineu Alves told ESPN: “We are giving him a chance to start again.”
Cabanas himself is looking forward with understandable emotion to the next few months: “This is my life. (My love for) football made me recover completely. If I didn’t have football , if I didn’t practice football, I would not be recovered, I could be somewhere else.”
Sambafoot will naturally be covering Salvador Cabanas’ compelling story over the course of the 2014 Brazilian season.