Edinson Cavani is miles away. He has played in five countries, at some of the biggest clubs in the biggest leagues, alongside the biggest stars; he is about to represent Uruguay at his 10th international tournament; and he has racked up 785 games, scored 434 goals and won 26 trophies, but he cannot help being drawn to somewhere else entirely. Back to where it began, far from the training centre where he sits now, a necessary escape. “Name all those places, and I say: ‘No, leave me in Salto,’” he says. “Beneath a tree, in the shade, where the breeze blows, without the sound of cars.”
Cavani talks about the game as a “passion” inherited from his father, a forward who played against Luis Suárez’s dad in Salto where the two Uruguay strikers were born three weeks apart. He discusses dedication, the competitiveness running through him, and the striker’s art, dissected in detail and distilled in a line: “Football is time and space.” There is a wonder at some of the things he did but still cannot explain and he describes a month at the World Cup as a joy “where you feel totally connected to football, where you live it, every second”.
