Footballer Pablo Marí, stabbed in Italy, recovers after undergoing surgery and will play again in three months

Spanish soccer player Pablo Marí Villar, who was stabbed Thursday in a supermarket outside Milan, is recovering favorably from knife wounds to his back.

As explained by Monza, the club where he has played since last summer, on loan from Arsenal, the Valencian defender underwent surgery on Friday morning at the Niguarda hospital in Milan to rebuild two muscles injured by the stabbing.

"The operation has gone well and hospital admission is expected for two or three days," the team, owned by Silvio Berlusconi, said in a statement.

The CEO of Monza, Adriano Galliani, who immediately went to the hospital to visit the player, has indicated that the team is "shocked" and explained that they have asked those responsible for Serie A to postpone the match against Bologna set for Monday.

However, the Italian league has not accepted Monza's request and it will play as planned.

According to the sports director, the squad is very affected by what happened.

“We have a cohesive and united locker room, where everyone is friends,” Galliani said, adding: “Last night [on Thursday] everyone was crying.

[Matteo] Pessina cried for half an hour…”, referring to the 25-year-old Italian international from Monza.

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Pablo Marí, 29, was taken by helicopter to the medical center, where he arrived conscious and was able to tell what happened.

“I was lucky because I saw a person die in front of me.

I was in the stroller with my son and felt excruciating pain in my back.

After that I saw this man stab a person in the throat, in front of me”, the footballer has expressed, according to

.

He has also explained that he is fine.

"He told me as a joke that he wants to play against Bologna on Monday," Galliani revealed to the media after seeing the player on Thursday night.

“Paul is a great guy.

He has had the strength to joke.

I have conveyed the greetings of President Berlusconi and all of his colleagues, who would have liked to come here although, obviously, it has not been possible”, he added.

Galliani has also reported that, according to the doctors, Marí's good physical condition prevented the stab wound from reaching the lung and having greater consequences for the Valencian defender.

"If she didn't have athlete muscles, her knife probably would have sunk in," she has said.

A bouquet of flowers, at the place where a person was murdered on the outskirts of Milan.Claudio Furlan/LaPresse (AP)

When she is discharged, Marí will have to start a rehabilitation process and take at least two months off before resuming physical activity.

So she will be able to return to the field of play in about three months.

The footballer, who had trained in the morning at the Monzello sports center, the club's headquarters, as usual, was spending the afternoon at the Assago shopping center in Milan with his partner and his four-year-old son.

While walking through the supermarket, pushing a shopping cart in which the boy was sitting, a 46-year-old man with mental disorders who had taken a knife for sale from the shelves stabbed him in the back.

The assailant injured four other people, one of whom died on the way to the hospital.

According to the newspaper

, the attacker was arrested thanks to the intervention of former soccer player Massimo Tarantino, who managed to immobilize him until the police arrived.

Tarantino, 51, played as a defender for Bologna, Inter and Napoli, quit football in 2006 and later pursued a career as a sports manager.

"I haven't done anything special, I'm not a hero," declared the player.

And he has explained to the media that the aggressor "did nothing but scream."

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