Football was Abdoulaye Keita's life, he lived and breathed it. At first, he played for the successful Bamako club Stade Malien in the premier league. Libya's premier league Al-Ittihad followed, a club that has won the Libyan premier league 16 times, the Libyan super cup seven times and the Libyan Supercup 10 times. 

Keita was even watching football - the African Cup of Nations -  when his life changed forever. That was back in 2013 in a TV room in the Italian welcome center "Cara di Mineo" about an hour's drive from the center of the east coast Sicilian town, Catania. On the TV that night, Mali was playing and Keita says it was a game he couldn't miss. That was until a fight broke out and he got involved.

"There were so many people coming at that time, we were all from different places, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, and there were so many problems. We were all mixed up. We didn't understand each other, so it was easy for misunderstandings to take place." People would flare up at the drop of a hat, explains Keita. A guy from Ivory Coast threw a television at him that landed on his back and Keita dropped to the floor.

At first, he says, the doctors said he was OK and quickly discharged him, but he knew something was wrong. "I could feel pain all over my body, all over, how is it possible that there was nothing wrong?" "It's the fault of the doctor that I can't walk," he adds, believing that had he been diagnosed more quickly perhaps he would still be able to walk. 

He was sent back to Cara di Mineo but was crying out with pain from his bed, until someone called the police and then a second ambulance was summoned. He was transferred to Siracusa to undergo an operation on his spinal cord. "I couldn't move for two months, I couldn't do anything," he says, remembering back to that time. Transferred to a special spinal cord unit, Canizzaro, in Catania, he remained there for 18 months, still watching football whenever he could and learning Italian. "Thanks to them, I started to be able to move my hands, and my feet, a tiny bit. It is very slow but things have improved," he says with a serious face.

'I didn’t want to come to Italy'

Today, more than six years after he first arrived in Lampedusa, Keita, with a sad face, says that he never intended coming to Italy. After his parents were both killed in outbreaks of violence, he fled Mali for Libya, where he continued his football career. But, when the revolt against Libya's former leader, Colonel Gadhafi broke out, he said he was imprisoned and then forced onto a boat heading for Lampedusa.

He describes the first centers in 2012 as "chaotic, so many nationalities, so many languages." He tried out for two local football teams Caltagirone and Mineo but no one was able to take him on because he lacked a resident's permit. He quickly realized that continuing his playing career at the top level in Italy was going to be difficult, if not impossible, without the correct papers.

So his days took on the rhythm of almost everyone else in the big 'welcome' centers like Cara di Mineo. Sleep, eat, watch TV, repeat.

Keita tried to keep up his training as best as he could. "In the mornings, I would head out for a run and in the evening I would practice with the ball," he says, his face almost expressionless, as if remembering another life.

No justice

Keita is sitting up straight in a hydraulic bed in his tiny room in the "casa di famiglia" (Family house) a community run by Giuseppe Messina. Messina and his wife have three houses on the sprawling slopes of Mount Etna in an area called Pedara, each residence is filled with life's waifs and strays, from migrants, ex-prisoners, ex-alcoholics, survivors of domestic violence, those with mental and physical disabilities who have no one and nowhere to go.

Pedara is not the poorest area of Catania - many of the houses are quite big, though a lot are also crumbling. Burnt out cars sit in the courtyard outside Keita's bedroom and a quince tree stands heavy with fruit in the small garden. There is a small TV screen on the table not far from Keita's bed and a few posters on the wall. An air of quiet fills the tiled, sparsely furnished room.

Keeping the faith

"Thanks to god, thanks to Giuseppe, I am here and I am still alive," says Keita, bowed, but not resigned. He still works on his physiotherapy whenever he can, although his hands rest on his legs, the wasted muscles and the light in his eyes is extinguished for a moment before he returns to the subject of god and Giuseppe.

Keita says that the man who did this to him, from Ivory Coast, first pleaded for his forgiveness. "He rang me, crying and crying to see if I was OK." Keita thought that he could forgive him and the police released him. But now he has disappeared and no one can find him. "God will judge him," says Keita stoically, flipping between anger and forgiveness as he tells his story.  

Keita is religious, a Muslim, and Giuseppe Messina is strongly Catholic, his work, he says is a "calling" even if he is not actually a priest in the classic sense of the word. Both of them frequently refer to God.

Married, but no hope for return

"Thanks to Giuseppe, I've been back to my country twice, and I've got married," says Keita, proudly. A picture of his wife in a bridal gown is his phone's screensaver. He hopes that one day his wife will be able to join him in Italy, "but that will take time," he confides. On both visits home, he has had to take enough medical equipment to last him for the duration of his visit, "those things you can't get in Mali" he says indicating the colostomy bags and catheters hanging on the wall near his bed. For that reason, he thinks it will be difficult for him to ever return for good. "I can't do anything alone," he says, agreeing that it is sad for someone at 34 to be left sitting 24 hours a day, without the possibility of movement.

When asked if he has a dream, he looks surprised. "It all depends on God, if God wants me to do something new, then I will, if not, then I won't," Keita finishes smiling. He is quiet about his own role in the community, preferring to describe how much everyone else helps him. Listening to Giuseppe though, Keita has become an integral part of the house, his gentle nature providing a point of reference for his fellow inhabitants and spreading as much joy to others as he takes from the visits that he receives through his open door facing the garden.