Ah, December. The time of year writers and journalists are spared the niggling stress of having to think up story ideas and can instead mindlessly churn out various "year in review" pieces.
The biography at the side of this website says I am supposed to be writing about football in "Central America and the Caribbean" so what better way to glance back over the year than to list the most violent off-field incidents tangentially related to soccer in Canada's favourite winter getaway.
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Salvador Cabañas gets shot in the head
Let this be a lesson. Even famous footballers should take care with whose company they share when partying in swank Mexico City nightclubs at five o'clock in the morning. Or failing that, take care with whom they stand beside when urinating in the bathrooms at said nightclubs. Poor Cabañas got into an argument with the wrong thugs at the wrong time and took a bullet for his trouble. I make light of this, but he is, more or less, ok, despite the fact the bullet is still lodged in his head. The farcical part of this story is that Cabañas' former employers are Club America, one of the richest clubs in Mexico. Cabañas has since returned to his native Paraguay, but his lawyers continue battling to squeeze payments from America for his treatment.
His teammate Juan Carlos Silva gets shot in the ass
One week after the Cabañas shooting, his teammate was assaulted in the street (I presume, since the Mexican website I'm cribbing the idea for this entire blog post from doesn't elaborate) and during the attack a bullet somehow grazed his buttocks. Luckily Silva continued playing immediately. This reminds me of George Orwell, who was shot in the neck during the Spanish Civil War. When told by a friend that he'd been lucky to live, he replied that he'd have been luckier not to have been shot at all.
Cruz Azul official gets six bullets in his front door
Sweet Christ. Thankfully in this particular case no one was injured, because these shots were fired at the family home of Azul's vice-president of sports, Alfredo Álvarez Cuevas. Apparently the police still don't have a motive, nevermind a suspect, but the
aforementioned article says some hardcore supporters believe the attack is related to a dispute between the cement company that sponsors the club and one of the club's directors who is accused of fraud.
Mexican national team gets 24/7 armed escort
Mexico played an October friendly against their counterparts from Venezuela in Ciudad Juárez. This city has won fame due to its narco-gangs run amok. There can only be so many gruesome public beheadings in which ominous messages scrawled in blood are left on the corpses before the Department of Foreign Affairs advises against all non-essential travel to the region. The stars of El Tri were accompanied by heavily armed federal police constantly during their stay in the city, an entourage which frustrated the many fans who congregated at the airport with the silly hope of getting their heroes' autograph.
Photo credit: Steve Rhodes