Disturbing News About Milad Abbasi

Six years ago I made a brief entry about Milad Abbassi, the best goalkeeper in Jordan's history, and the goalkeeper of the national team for nearly 15 years.

Like many brilliant Jordanians, he realized that he might get a better life by immigrating somewhere else. He moved to the US and started giving football lessons to kids in a school in South Carolina, then moved to Chicago to run a grocery store. His new name in America was Chris. Milad Abbassi, the most mentioned name on Jordanian TV in the 1980s after late King Hussein, was now being called Chris.

Milad was the goalkeeper in a not-so-golden era of Jordanian football. We used to get beaten up by many teams. Iraq, Syria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia defeated us almost every single time we played against them. However Milad Abbasi always protected the goal, so that a 1-0 loss to Iraq probably meant we had easily deserved a 5-0 loss.

I didn't know any further details about his life in the US, up until yesterday. There was burglary in his store in Chicago. Men entered his store and asked for money, but he resisted giving them the money. Apparently he still had the same attitude he used to give to strikers of other teams, "I know you'll win at the end, but I'm not gonna make it an easy one for you" . Those men shot Milad in his face and abdomen. His condition is reported to be critical but stable. Here's a link to the burglary report. (thanks Hamzah Nassif for the link)

I wish him a great recovery, and to get back to his normal life without any harm. And even if he lost his memory, he'll always be in ours, his fans.