World Cups only come round every four years. Playing in one is the highlight of many a career.  Missing one through injury is heartbreak, especially if the chance may not come again.

Perhaps Salvador Cabanas should be happy merely to be alive. He suffered much more than a sporting injury. The stocky Paraguayan striker took a bullet in the head in Mexico City nearly three months ago, and was fighting for his life.

That battle seems to have been won. His progress has surprised doctors and he appears to be recuperating well in a Buenos Aires clinic. Neurologist Celso Fretes said this week that Cabanas is still experiencing problems with concentration and memory, but that he is doing well and should be able to make a good recovery.

His progress may well have been motivated by a desire to play in the World Cup - his father says that this is a constant topic in his conversation. But it is hard to see how this can possibly happen.

"He might be able to become an outpatient in about four weeks," said Fretes, "coming to the clinic for a couple of hours per day but living in a house or flat in Buenos Aires."

World Cup looming

Given that the action in South Africa kicks off in just over seven weeks, such a timescale surely precludes any possible active involvement in the World Cup. Even if he further astounds the doctors and makes a full medical recovery in time, there is no way that he could be in the required physical shape. Fretes says that Cabanas is taking part in hospital kickabouts - but that is miles away from top-level competition of finely honed athletes.

Much as he deserves it, for all that it would make a great story, it simply does not seem feasible for Salvador Cabanas to play in the World Cup - and that is nothing less than a tragedy. Getting on the field in South Africa would be the pinnacle of a sporting career. And Cabanas is 30 in August. However good his recovery he will struggle to be in contention for the tournament in Brazil in four year's time.

Cabanas is something of a late developer. He was originally a midfielder in Paraguayan club football, converted into a striker in the course of his wanderings first through Chile and finally Mexico. With that stocky build and low centre of gravity he is hard to knock off the ball. He receives possession well, with subtle control, is superb on the turn and shoots with venomous power. 

He went to the last World Cup in Germany, but sat on the bench throughout Paraguay's disappointing campaign. A few months before the tournament I suggested to then-coach Anibal Ruiz that Cabanas might be a useful option - the record indicates that Ruiz was almost certainly wrong to ignore him. Paraguay was eliminated after failing to score in their first two group games.

A Mexican idol

His form in the subsequent years made him impossible to ignore. Cabanas became an idol in Mexico with America, the giants from the country's capital. Twice he was top scorer in the Copa Libertadores, South America's Champions League. With prestige soaring, he was Paraguay's top scorer in qualification, where he was like two players in one. His old midfielder's sensibility made him a creator of chances. His new striker's ruthlessness made him a deadly finisher. Until that bullet struck, he carried his country's hopes of a first ever quarter-final appearance in this year's World Cup.

At the start of the year there was speculation lining him to a move to Sunderland in the English Premier League. But there were sound reasons to doubt that it would go ahead. Twenty nine is an advanced age for a first trip across the Atlantic - by the time he had adapted to his new surroundings he might already find himself on the downward slope.

This World Cup, then, would be his everything - the moment when he was in his prime, the time when the entire planet would be witness to the prowess of a stocky little guy from the outskirts of Asuncion.

Here's hoping that Salvador Cabanas makes a complete recovery, and goes on to lead a full and happy life as a footballer, husband, father, grandfather and whatever else fate has in store for him. 

But it is hard not to grieve for the moment that he could have had in South Africa this June and July. He was born to shine in this World Cup, and an idiot's bullet has cheated him of his destiny.