Soccer player Cabanas, who was shot in head, takes free kicks and shoots hoops at rehab clinic

Cabanas out taking free kicks, shooting baskets

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Paraguay soccer player 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, says he was with the player this week and watched him take free kicks from 15-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.