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FORMER Spain football team captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas has bought the legendary 'Kitt' car driven by David Hasselhoff's Michael Knight in the cult sci-fi TV show to celebrate the success of his wife's recent operation.
Sara Carbonero was diagnosed in May 2019 with early-stage ovarian cancer, discovered during a routine gynaecology appointment, within days of Iker's collapsing during training with his then team FC Oporto with a heart attack.
The TV reporter, fashion designer and model underwent months of chemotherapy whilst Iker was going through his long rehabilitation process, and although they were both back to health last year, the latter's footballing career was over – a decade after he captained Spain to its first FIFA World Cup win in the middle of two consecutive UEFA Euro victories.
It also led the couple to decide to move back into their villa in the upmarket commuter town of Pozuelo de Alarcón, just outside Madrid, from Oporto, Portugal, where they had spent the last five years.
Iker has accepted a job with his old team, Real Madrid, as advisor and intermediary between management and players, and Sara, who had been focusing mainly on her sustainable fashion brand SlowLove created with her two best friends, stunned fans by announcing a return to her first reporting job – as DJ on Radio Marca.
The station, linked to the sports newspaper Marca, was where Sara launched her career, and she is now back on air with the team 15 years after she initially joined it.
Just as it seemed life was looking up again for the celebrity couple, Sara was admitted to Madrid's University of Navarra private hospital on February 5, only two days after her 37th birthday, amid reports that her cancer had returned.
Subsequent reports ranged from referring to her ordeal as a 'relapse' in the disease – which, unlike in Sara's case, is nearly always discovered too late and comes back in 80% of women after surgery and chemotherapy – through to calling it a 'small setback' or 'minor hurdle'.
Sara herself, discharged a week later and smiling and waving to reporters and the public from the passenger seat as her husband drove her home, referred to it as an 'ITV' (MOT), which she said she had 'passed'.
She was back at work at Radio Marca 11 days after being admitted and, asked how she was feeling, likened herself to the Sting-Ray puppets of the 1970s.
To celebrate, Iker – a firm fan of classic cars – bought 'Kitt' and posted a photo of himself at the wheel on his Instagram site.
“Those series we grew up with – along came the 1980s and the likes of The A Team and Knight Rider were followed by thousands and thousands of Spaniards,” wrote Iker, who was born in May 1981 and so did not, in fact, see the 1980s 'come along'.
But he and his wife, born in 1984, would indeed have grown up with these mythical US-based action series that kept late Generation X and early Millennial kids worldwide glued to the screen.
Unfortunately, one of Iker's followers had to spoil it by pointing out his new 'Kitt' was a replica of the 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, not the original.
“The Kitt car didn't have a round steering wheel. Fail!” Wrote one Instagram user, punctuating the comment with laughing emojis and a photograph of Hasselhof in the driver's seat.
Chances are Iker's new motor does not talk back to its occupants, either, like the rebellious retro sat-nav of the series – but a round steering wheel is arguably more practical 39 years after Michael Knight drove a brand-new Kitt off the forecourt.
And from the outside, it is certainly impressive.
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