Gone fishing PSG striker Cavani confesses his big secret
Edinson Cavani tells Jason Burt in Doha how a hobby has helped him as a striker – and reveals the strength of his partnership with Neymar and Mbappe
Doha, three days before Christmas. Edinson Cavani, Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Thiago Silva are playing ‘keepie-uppie’ on a man-made five-a-side sized island floating in the West Bay. As you do. That is around half a billion pounds of the world’s best footballing talent bobbing around among the waves.
It is part of Paris St-germain’s Qatar winter tour and there is laughter across the bay – not least when Neymar’s boot flies off and plonks into the water as he strikes a ball and Mbappe almost topples in trying to retrieve it.
Cavani doubles up with the giggles.
He is at home on water. It is where he feels most at ease, as I later discover during this rare interview. He even thinks a passion for fishing has helped his football.
Indeed as we chat, Cavani’s mind wanders back to the long days spent casting a line on the Uruguay River with his father, Luis, and friends by their hometown of Salto where he loves to return. It is, he says, where his “soul” is.
“When I fish there are a lot of images that come to my mind,” Cavani recalls. “Of when I was a child. I did not have things I have now so to go fishing now is completely different. I am very grateful for all that I have acquired in life.”
There is also, Cavani believes, a clear, intriguing link – which has helped to make him one of the best strikers in world football. “Fishing gives me peace, tranquillity. And also, as a forward player, it helps me, with my eyes. You have to wait for the moment to attack, to catch the fish. And in football my position is basically the same. You have to wait for the precise moment, to attack. I wait for the fish, to catch them. You have to be patient and then pay attention – and then act immediately. Like when you play football.”
Really? “Definitely,” Cavani says, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, gesturing with his hand to his eyes and then out to the imaginary river.
“You prepare for that. You prepare for that specific moment to attack. It’s not something I thought of as a boy but, as I grew up, it started to become something I associated with being a striker and in being successful in my career, scoring goals.”
A lot of goals. Cavani was the first player to reach 50 goals for 2017 and he has scored 22 goals or more in each of his past eight seasons with Napoli, in Serie A, and with PSG, whom he joined in 2013 for €64million (£57million), briefly the second biggest transfer fee of all time, and where he has just been voted the best foreign player in Ligue 1.
The Uruguay international needs just one more goal to equal Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s PSG record of 156 goals. It is easy to see why he revels in the nickname El Matador, given to him during his time at Napoli. “They started calling me it there, the fans,” Cavani acknowledges, laughing. “The killer. It’s a nickname that I like.”
But there is little cold-eyed about the 30-year-old. He comes across as a thoughtful character and is most passionate talking about life back in Salto and his annual Salto a la Vida (A Jump to Life) charity match, although he also knows there will be questions about PSG, about the pressure and expectation of wearing the “No 9” shirt for one of the biggest, wealthiest and most ambitious clubs in the world and about his much-scrutinised relationship with his team-mates, Neymar and Mbappe, both of whom signed last summer for fees that smashed the world record.
Already the trio have scored 38 of PSG’S 58 league goals and helped set a record of 25 goals in the group stages of the Champions League, for which they are joint-second favourites despite facing holders Real Madrid in the last 16.
There is a burning desire at PSG to win the competition, not least because of the traumatic way in which they exited at the same stage last season, having beaten Barcelona 4-0 only to lose the second leg 6-1. Cavani scored at the Nou Camp but it was not enough as, somehow, Barcelona struck three times from the 88th minute to the end of the second leg. “It was a weird game and, to be honest, an unfair game,” Cavani states. “To lose in that way made it even more difficult. You have to learn from experience and that was definitely a learning experience.”
Neymar, of course, was instrumental to Barcelona’s
‘What fulfils me are the goals that I have in life. I am proud of what I have done’
incredible comeback. He is now a team-mate of Cavani’s and before this interview, Cavani is handed a baseball cap as a gift. On it are the initials MCN, standing for Mbappe, Cavani, Neymar. Are they the new ‘MSN’ [Messi, Suarez, Neymar]? “It’s a dream that people had,” he says of PSG signing Neymar and following that by acquiring Mbappe to create such a formidable forward line.
“I enjoy it,” Cavani adds. “Obviously I enjoy it and I have a good relationship with the other two, playing with them. But I want to stress – we are not the only ones at Paris St-germain. It’s a team full of excellent players. It’s not about us. It’s about PSG.”
Nevertheless much was made, after Neymar’s signing, of his relationship with Cavani especially after the public disagreement, in a match against Lyon last September, over which superstar should take penalties. “We have a great relationship,” Cavani counters. “We are very professional and our goal is teamwork and the club. Everyone was really happy when he [Neymar] signed because he’s such a great player and so it was a good thing for the club, for the team. It was incredibly exciting for all of us.”
There is a reluctance to talk much more about it. “The problem is that many people are not given the correct information and there is a lot of misunderstanding,” Cavani carefully explains. For him it can, understandably, simply become “annoying” because “people keep asking over and over again about the same situation” and pick over every word. He is, therefore, cautious he is not misinterpreted. Watching him interact with Neymar, as I did for a morning, they appeared to get on very well.
“What fulfils me are the goals that I have in life,” Cavani explains. “And those goals are not just about scoring goals although the goals give me a lot of strength and happiness. I am proud of what I have done but I know I have to keep going, keeping doing it and, at PSG, there is pressure. A lot of pressure. But it is what all the players have to overcome.”
Cavani, contracted to 2020, would like to see out his career at PSG. “I enjoy being at this club; I like it a lot,” he says. “And I want to stay for a long time. In football you don’t know what can happen. But my will is to be fulfilled at PSG and stay. And win a lot of cups!”
Winning the Champions League is the biggest goal. “In all competitions there can be only one winner but PSG is one of the best teams in the world,” Cavani says. “It will be difficult for us to win the Champions League but we want to win it; first the French championship and then the Champions League. That is what we are working for. And when you win, it is not just about winning the cup but the reward you feel for everything you have done to get there, all those experiences. It makes it all even more important.”
Which takes his mind back, again, to Salto – a dusty, country outpost, with a population of around 100,000 (and where, coincidentally, Luis Suarez was also born in the same year, 1987) – where Cavani’s annual charity football match takes place at the 7,500-capacity Estadio Ernesto Dickinson between Christmas and New Year.
“When I was a little boy there were a lot of children with physical problems in my hometown and my parents used to work with them and I learnt a lot about that. Since I was a child helping out, doing what I can, was something that fulfilled me,” Cavani says.
“It is the reality that a lot of people face and dealing with that, helping with that, opens my mind, opens my soul and it makes it even more important for me to help. So every year now we do the charity match. Last year it was for children with cancer and this year it’s for children with Down’s syndrome.
“I love to go back to my hometown. It’s where my soul is. To go to the places where I used to go when I was a little child. I still go to them. I like to ride horses, work on the farm, with the animals and, yes, go fishing.”
With that, and the end of this interview, there is an offer. “I invite you to come to Salto with me to go fishing,” Cavani says, smiling.