A World Cup Runner-Up Living on the Street

Sebastián Canobra came up through Atenas de San Carlos in Uruguay and was considered one of the club's promising young players at 16. Coach Fabián Coito picked him for Uruguay's under-17 squad, and in 2011 he was part of the team that finished runner-up at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Mexico. He came on as a substitute in the final at the Estadio Azteca. His later career did not follow that start: a knee injury and a long recovery ended a spell training with Peñarol, and he went on to play briefly in Curaçao and try out in the United States. His last recorded club was a small side in Belgium in 2018.

By January 2024, aged 29, he was living on the street in Minas, in Uruguay's Lavalleja department. El Observador said that, about eight years after his youth success, he had been left without training and was caught up in addiction. The story became public on the weekend of 20–21 January, when Aldrind Arriola, a police officer and president of the Minas referees' committee, wrote online that he had met Canobra, who said he wanted work, a place to live and a chance to return to football.

Officials at the Ministry of Social Development in Lavalleja said that in late December one of their staff had met him and another person in a central plaza in Minas and referred them to a shelter. The other person stayed. Canobra left, saying he would manage on his own. His brother Santiago wrote a public letter asking for respect for the family, saying they had helped him until the last time he asked.

Within days, the family travelled from Maldonado to Minas, and with the support of the Uruguayan footballers' union and the ministry's local office, he was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic. Media reports described this as the start of a recovery process.