Accidental Mad Max and Tasers
“I began to understand where I was but when I touched my legs, I couldn’t feel them. I was afraid. Then my agent came to see me and he slapped my legs, and I felt them. That made me a stronger person.”
The journey wasn’t without its skid marks. In 2009, he was sent flying through his car windshield, falling asleep at the wheel while travelling at 140 km/h. El Pitbull has a thick skin. Fortunately for him, he just needed two months to recover from the accident and start playing football again.
Mental resilience now followed his physical doggedness. Before that incident, the harebrained side of his Pitbull persona used to rear its ugly head rather indiscriminately. Two years’ prior his car accident, a full-blooded U-20 match against Argentina, saw him dismissed just 15 minutes into the game: the story goes that the police had to electrocute him with tasers in the car park of the said stadium because he was beyond restraint and reason. “He just didn’t stop”, remarked Fred Guarin recounting said incident.
