Edinson Cavani: His Father, His Goals and His World Cup Dream

One of the great chapters in Uruguayan international football began on a hot, sticky night in February 2008. Uruguay were playing a friendly in their national stadium in Montevideo—the Estadio Centenario, venue for the first FIFA World Cup final in 1930—against Colombia. The home side were trailing 2-0 when Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez substituted star striker Diego Forlan with about 15 minutes to go in the match.

Tabarez threw on a 20-year-old Edinson Cavani for his debut. Within a few minutes, Cavani raced into the box and got on the end of a knockdown. Just as the ball bounced about seven or eight metres from Colombia's goal, he stabbed it home with the studs of his boot. It was a fantastic piece of ingenuity. Fittingly, Luis Suarez—who is the other half of arguably the most fearsome strike partnership at this summer's FIFA World Cup finals in Russia—grabbed the equaliser with four minutes to play in the match.

Cavani had won an improbable Uruguayan league title with Danubio—only the club's third in over a century of the competition's history—a year earlier. "To win a title in my country with a team whose history is inferior to Nacional and Penarol is something that always has twice as much merit," he told B/R. "The excitement is double because you really need a lot of sacrifice to be able to win a championship in my country."

Cavani's heroics with Danubio led to a move to the riches of European football, where he signed for Palermo. Again, he scored on his debut as a second-half substitute, this time in a Serie A match against Fiorentina in March 2007. The goal was a thunderbolt—a volley of unerring execution from outside the box into the top right-hand corner of the net.

After moving to Napoli in 2010, he continued to score at an impressive rate. During three seasons with a resurgent Napoli—who won the Coppa Italia in 2012, their first major trophy in two decades—Cavani scored over 20 league goals each season. In his third and final campaign, he finished top scorer in the league with 29.

It was in Italy that Cavani got to learn about the attentions of Giorgio Chiellini, the rock upon which Juventus have built their defence since 2005. Cavani says he is the most difficult defender he has faced during his career: "For me, the defender I respect the most is Giorgio Chiellini. He's one of the best defenders in the world. I really like the way he plays football on the pitch, the way he defends. He lives for the game. He transmits a sense of tranquillity to his team-mates. I have always admired his way to play."

After several seasons in Serie A, Cavani joined Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2013. At PSG, he has won it all domestically, including four league titles and a Ligue 1 Player of the Year award for the 2016-2017 season after he scored 49 goals in 50 games.

The UEFA Champions League has proved to be a bitter hunting ground, though. Against Barcelona in March 2017 at the Camp Nou in possibly the most famous comeback in the history of the competition, it was Cavani who scored what seemed to be the game's decisive goal.

After PSG had leaked three goals—and a chunk of their 4-0 lead from the first leg—Cavani settled his team's nerves with a brilliant goal on the hour mark, pulling the trigger with the outside of his right boot as the ball popped up in front of him in the middle of Barca's box. It was a false dawn, however, as Barca stormed PSG with three late goals to win 6-1 on the night—and 6-5 on aggregate.

"People talk a lot about that return match at the Camp Nou," says Cavani. "Things happened that I know are hard to understand. Everybody knows that in football anything can happen. It's in the past now, but we could also take lessons from the match, things to help us grow."

Cavani doesn't shy away from taking blame for the capitulation. When casting around for an explanation, he concedes it could have been that his team were complacent or that they lost their nerve. "It could be a bit from [either of those factors], but the first thing to say is that the responsibility is with us—the players who were on the pitch," he says. "We are the ones who had the responsibility of playing. We are responsible for what happened."

Cavani has had more trying moments in his career. A day before Uruguay played Chile in the quarter-final of the Copa America in June 2015, his family was rocked. He was in camp with the Uruguay squad when he was woken from his sleep to take a call informing him that his father, Luis, was in police custody, per Infobae.

The previous day, his father was having dinner with four other people. They shared three bottles of wine, per El Pais. After the meal, Cavani's father got into a white Ford Raptor truck to pick up some cigarettes and another bottle of wine. While driving two kilometres outside his hometown city, Salto, he collided with Francisco Rodriguez, a 19-year-old studying law at university who was on a motorcycle. The injured motorcyclist was hit from behind and dragged 50 metres. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead a few hours later.  

Cavani's father had 1.7 grams of alcohol per litre of blood in his system; the maximum amount permitted for drivers in Uruguay is 0.3 grams. Cavani was, according to Tabarez, "very affected" by the news.

Uruguayan Football Federation President Wilmar Valdez left all the options open for him, per El Observador (h/t Referi): He could leave the team's camp in Chile; Cavani could stay put and play Uruguay's match the following day against hosts Chile; and he could travel to be with his family after the game or once the tournament concluded.

When quizzed about his predicament, Cavani stresses that the family who were bereaving the dead young motorcyclist were uppermost in his thoughts. "Both families were enduring a very sad moment," he says. "There are things that happen that go beyond the imagination of any footballer. It was a very painful moment, but at the time we tried to deal with supporting the other family as well."

As the hours passed that morning, instead of going for breakfast with his team-mates, Cavani stayed in his room making phone calls, per Infobae. He was unable to speak with his father. "When the accident happened he was incommunicado," he says. "I talked with my family. The truth is it was a very delicate, distressing moment, but in difficult moments you try to be strong and move forward and plan for what will happen next. It was distressing first of all for the other family and also for us because of everything we were going through."

Cavani played the quarter-final the following evening. It was a brutal, bruising match. Chile won 1-0 with a late goal. Two players from Uruguay were sent off, including Cavani. It is the only time Cavani has been sent off in his international career. In the second half, he was poked in the backside by the Chilean defender Gonzalo Jara. The incident was caught on camera, but not by the referee. He gave Cavani a second yellow card for pushing Jara, who fell to the ground theatrically in front of the official.

According to a radio interview given by Uruguay assistant coach Mario Rebollo, per Radio Hora 25 (h/t the Guardian), Jara had also been sledging Cavani during the game, goading him about his father's car accident: "He said that Cavani's father was going to get 20 years [in prison]." It was much graver than the poking incident caught on camera, added Rebollo.

"Yeah, the truth is that it was something that nobody expected," says Cavani. "Jara will have his reasons, but as I said before 1,000 times, a lot of things happened in that match that nobody can explain. Things happened that were inexplicable, outside of football, and it damaged us because I think we were playing a strong match."

Cavani's father spent almost three months in prison before being released in September 2015 with a 12-month driving ban, per El Pais. Chile went on to win the 2015 Copa America, the first in their history, but they failed to qualify for this summer's FIFA World Cup. Cavani has since met Jara. There is no bad blood. "Yes, we met afterwards in Uruguay," he says, "and we said 'hello' and he apologised. Look, things happen in football that are shocking and become part of the past. That's it."

Uruguay arrived in Russia quietly confident. Although the country has only a population of 3.5 million people, it has overachieved in football—winning 15 Copa America titles, more than any other country, and two World Cups (1930, 1950).

It has a team stocked with several players who have more than a century of caps—including Cavani, Suarez and their captain, Diego Godin, one of the great defenders of the modern age—as well as impressive new blood in defence with Jose Maria Gimenez and in midfield with Juve's Rodrigo Bentancur. The team hasn't disappointed. In the group stages, it has kept three clean sheets and clocked up maximum points.

Cavani was Uruguay's most dangerous player in their opener against Egypt. And he's brought his scoring boots, bagging the final goal in a 3-0 rout of hosts Russia. He'll be looking to add to his tally against Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal in their last-16 encounter on Saturday. It's a fascinating tie and could be another step towards greater things. Cavani believes in his team's chances of going all the way.

"Football is about sacrifice, dedication, a lot of work and friendship off the pitch," Cavani says. "If the team has that, it is possible that unexpected things can happen. I always have belief in my country."

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