Obscure South American of the Week Quinze

Name – Salvador Cabanas Ortega

Affiliation – Club America

Reason for Coolness – He’s bigger than most hatchbacks and looks impressively like a murderous film villain who could kill you with one hand. Not that we think all Hispanic chaps are scary criminals.

Reason for Obscurity – Well he’s Paraguayan and plays in the Mexican top flight, so he’s stayed under the radar quite easily. He’s also successfully managed to not have any of his relatives kidnapped so the world press has left him well alone.

As the clock ticks down on the transfer window, and many clubs look like they could use a proven striker, we at STT thought we would once again put on our scouting hat and cast an envious gaze over at South America. This chap you will almost certainly not have heard of, but was earlier this summer linked with many of the big guns in La Liga, so he must know what he’s doing.

Senor Cabañas started his career in his native Paraguay for the strangely-named club 12 de Octubre, before a brief stint in Club Guaraní earned him a prestigious move to Chilean top dogs Audax Italiano. In the 2003 Apertura tournament of the Chilean league, Cabañas netted an impressive 18 goals and was the top scorer, and his record over two years at Audax was such that the Mexicans came a sniffing, impressed by an average of more than a goal every two games. Cabañas came into his own though in the 2004 Clausura for the Jaguares in Chiapas, Mexico, scoring 15 goals in 20 games for the club.

In his three years with Chiapas, the Praguayan netted an amazing 59 times in 103 games, attracting the attention of Mexican heavyweights Club America, one of the biggest clubs in the country. Cabañas has become América's most prolific goal-scorer for 2007, finishing up the first half of the year with an impressive 19 goals. He started the second half of the year as he meant to continue, continuing to take no prisoners as he battle-rammed his way through the Mexican league, finishing with an impressive 33 goals for the year. His top form in 2007 earned him the not-too-prestigious award of Paraguayan Footballer of the Year, but also the actually-quite-impressive title of South American Footballer of the Year too.

So far this year Cabanas has already finished top scorer of the Copa Libertadores (for a consecutive second time), and in all competitions reached the milestone of 20 goals for four months of the year still to go.

He’s basically just a beast. Someone sign him up soon! Here then are his Top 10 goals for your consumative pleasure: