Pablo Mari, a Spanish soccer player, described being injured in a knife attack at an Italian shopping mall as “fortunate” to have survived. He had mouth and back injuries, and was receiving treatment.
Mar, a center back for Monza, has participated in eight of the team’s 11 Italian league contests thus far, and this month, in a 2-0 victory against Spezia, he added the second goal. With another Italian team, Udinese, he spent the second part of the previous campaign on loan. The next game for Monza, which is owned by former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi, comes on Monday at home against Bologna. The team is making their top division debut this year.
Police in Assago, a suburb of Milan, arrested a 46-year-old Italian man accused in the attack at a shopping mall, according to the carabinieri. On Thursday, five individuals were stabbed, one of them died, after a guy allegedly took a knife from a grocery store shelf.
Although the injuries to the 29-year-old Mari, who represents Serie A team Monza on loan from Arsenal, are not life-threatening, she was still being treated at the Milan-area Niguarda hospital.
“He told me he had ‘suerte’ (luck), because, ‘today I saw someone else die,’” Adriano Galliani, CEO of Monza, made this statement after seeing Mar late on Thursday.
The attacker was stopped with the help of Massimo Tarantino, a former soccer player for Napoli and Inter Milan. Galliani claimed Mari also had mouth injuries, probably as a result of clenching his teeth throughout the assault.
Mari had cuts to his back and had two stitches put in his lip, but fortunately no organs were damaged. Galliani added that the police questioned Mari’s wife about being a witness to the assault,
The news agency ANSA reported that a grocery employee passed away on the way to the hospital and that three other victims were in critical condition. According to authorities, another person received shock treatment but was not hospitalised.
Police said the individual displayed symptoms of psychiatric instability, though they did not know why he carried out the attacks. There were no indicators of terrorism. The Assago Forum, an arena that will hold short-track speed skating and figure skating at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics, was close by when the attack took place.