Chilean striker Mauricio Pinilla certainly can’t blame himself for his team’s loss to Brazil at the World Cup on Saturday. Sure, it would have helped if his penalty kick had made it past Júlio César, but the same could be said of the other two guys who missed. That’s probably why Pinilla has such an incredibly sunny disposition about Chile’s loss to the home team, and specifically the second half goal that he missed, when he booted the ball off the crossbar. Pinilla now knows what that could have meant, as he could have been the hero that defeated the heavy favorites and pushed the underdogs into the quarterfinals.
Instead, Pinilla simply feels blessed that he had the opportunity to be doing any of this. How do we know? Because he had the words “Blessed” and “For life” tattooed on both sides of his face, as well as an image of his shot striking the crossbar on his back, with the message: “One centimeter from glory.” That is some truly awesome (and presumably painful) positivity.
