However, it was not Europe but Mexico where fate decreed that Cabanas would enjoy one of the most successful periods in his career. During his three years at Jaguares de Chiapas, he became the club’s idol, scoring 59 goals in 104 marches. In fact, he only scored five goals in his first league championship campaign, the 2003 Apertura, and it was not until the 2004 Clausura that he came to prominence. Helped by unexpectedly good all-round team performances, Cabanas scored 15 goals, just one fewer than top scorers Bruno Marioni and Andres Silvera.
He was never going to be content with just missing out ori such an achievement, which finally came in the 2006 Clausura, when he netted 11 goals and shared the honour of top scorer with Sebastian Abreti, although Salvador had scored three more goals in the knockout stages. ”I was very well received in Chiapas. I was well loved by the people and I tried to give them my best. I had a very happy time there,” he says.
His performances, effectiveness, consistency and leadership at Jaguares made him one of the most prolific foreign players in Mexican football (which he continues to be, with 86 goals in 154 matches in Mexico) and prompted interest from his current club. America, in mid-2006.

Born in Asuncion on 5 August 1980, Cabanas started out at a club in Itaugua, a town situated 35km from die Paraguayan capital. His coach there was Alicto Solalinde, who had won the Copa Lihertfielores with Olimpia in 1979 and who, on seeing Cabanas ability and eye for goal, immediately recommended him to Pedro Nelson Fleytas, then coach of the Paraguayan U-17s.
Cabanas went on to play youth football for Paraguay at every level. He took part in the 1997 South American Under-17 Championship in Paraguay, the 1999 South American Under-20 Championship in Argentina and the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Nigeria that same year. Shortly afterwards he made his debut for the senior team at the Hong Kong Stadium on 26 January 2001 in a friendly march between Paraguay and Korea Republic which ended 1-1.
At club level, he took his first steps with Paraguayan side 12 de Octubre, where he first became known in his home country, particularly during his debut season in 1998-99 when he scored 17 goals in 33 matches. He then moved to Guararii for six months and rejoined 12 de Octubre before leaping to international fame at Chilean club Audax Italiano, where he scored 38 goals in 89 matches and was top scorer in the 2003 Chilean Apercura with 18 goals. However, before he was able to claim even greater honours in the world of football that today still remembers him as young talent with a brilliant future, he suffered one of the pitfalls of bis profession, a knee-ligament injury rhat kept him on the sidelines for a long time. However, even that failed to hamper either his goalscoring instinct or his career as he came back with all guns blazing. By this time he was 22 and ready to make another big career move. ”It is every player’s aim to play in a big European league,” he has said on more than one occasion, expressing a dream that he still hopes to realise

Currently one of the best forwards in Latin America, an idol in Mexico, shy and retiring off the pitch and highly dangerous on it, 27-year-old Paraguayan Salvador Cabanas is his country’s most famous export.
Ashrinking violet off the pitch, Salvador Cabanas Ortega’s personality is transformed as soon as he steps onto the pitch. His silence is frequently broken by his goal celebrations and his aggressive, powerful and determined playing style makes it impossible for him to go unnoticed by team-mates and opponents alike.
Mexican club America’s star striker is now one of the players of the moment after his career rook off internationally in 2007. The first half of the year saw him top the Copa Libertadores scoring charts with ten goals, despite the fact that the Aguiias [Eagles] only reached the quarter¬finals. With a strike rate – of 1.43 goals per game, he is one of only 18 players to have scored ten or more goals in a single continental tournament.
In the second half of the year, he was on the verge of also being top scorer in the Copa Sudameriicano and thus completing an unprecedented dual feat. On top of his performances at club level, he has become a regular fixture for his country, Paraguay, after previously only featuring sporadically. Mis form at the 2007 Copa America in Venezuela, at which he scored three goals, finally won over Paraguay coach Gerardo Martin and he has been ever present in the four qualifiers for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa” that Paraguay have played so far.
“They sign me to score goals and that’s what I always try to do,” is the blunt statement of intent on which Cabanas has built his career.