There was definitely an astonishing connection between the knife attack perpetrated by a 46-year-old unbalanced man and the world of football on Thursday in a shopping center in the Milan region. The Spanish defender of Monza (and ex-Arsenal) Pablo Mari (29) is indeed one of the four people seriously injured by the attacker, who was arrested just after killing an employee of the Carrefour hypermarket in Assago ( Italy).
But that’s not all: a former professional footballer, Massimo Tarantino, ex-teammate of Diego Maradona in Naples and present by chance at the scene of the tragedy, had a key role in stopping the aggressor, as revealed La Gazzeta dello Sport.
Aged 51, this former Italian defender, who also played for Bologna and Inter twenty years ago, managed to disarm the attacker. “I am not a hero”, nuances the 1990 Italian champion with Napoli in the Italian newspaper. Successfully operated on Friday, after being stabbed in the back the day before, Pablo Mari considers “to have been lucky”, while he was shopping with his baby.