Paraguay footballer Salvador Cabanas, who is staging a miraculous
recovery after being shot in the head two months ago, has been out
taking free kicks and shooting baskets in a rehabilitation clinic
in Buenos Aires.
Neurologist Celso Fretes, hired by the Paraguay federation to
aid Cabanas, said Friday he was with the footballer this week and
watched him take free kicks from 15-meters (yards) out.
Cabanas, who was expected to be a star on Paraguay's World
Cup team in South Africa, was shot in the head at point-blank range
on Jan. 25 in a Mexico City bar. Surgeons elected to leave the
bullet fragment lodged in his skull, deciding it was too dangerous
to remove it.
"It was very emotional to see him outside, on the field,"
Fretes said on the Web site of the Asuncion newspaper Ultima Hora.
The newspaper put up a video showing Cabanas taking free
kicks and shooting baskets the Clinic FLENI in Buenos Aires.
Paraguay national team coach Gerardo Martino, who visited
Cabanas in Argentina, declined to speak about Cabanas' future in
football.
"Salvador is very good, but I will not speak about football
because the important thing is his condition as a human being, and
that of his wife and family," Martino said.
The star striker of Mexican club America, Cabanas was shot
just before dawn in a bar in an upmarket neighborhood in Mexico
City. His alleged assailant, identified as Jose Jorge Balderas, is
reported to be at large.
Cabanas appeared earlier this month in a Mexico television
interview. He was seated, was able to speak and said he would be
back playing soon. Doctors treating him have not said if - or when
- he might play again. The report also showed footage of him
playing table tennis.
