Pablo Mari is loan at Serie A side Monza from Arsenal. Sportinfoto/DeFodi Images via Getty ImagesArsenal defender Pablo Mari has returned to training with his loan club Monza two months after surviving a knife attack in an Italian supermarket.
Mari had surgery to reconstruct two injured muscles in his back following the attack.
The surgeon who operated on his back said that he survived the attack partly due to his top physical shape as an elite athlete.
"The surgery was a relatively simple one. Luckily there were only two damaged muscles," Osvaldo Chiara, the director of the general surgery and trauma team at the Niguarda hospital in Milan, said.
"[Mari's] muscular mass is such that the length of the knife that was used couldn't pass through the rib cage and hit his lung."
The 29-year-old Mari said he was "lucky" to survive following the horrific attack.
"Back with the team. Step by step," Mari said in a tweet.
Di nuovo con la squadra