Cesc’s Classless Classmates
15 comments July 14th, 2010
I’m sure by now you’ve all seen this.
Unfortunately for me, it was (airport terminal aside) pretty much the last thing I saw before leaving South Africa. The four hour flight to my stop-off in Nairobi was filled with nightmare visions of Puyol and Pique daubing Cesc’s naked, unwilling body in Catalan colours. It made me feel almost as sick as the original footage.
I understand Spain are in good spirits. I understand they’re merely making what they would undoubtedly call “a joke”. But the best sportsmen win with grace, and respect. There was very little respect for Arsenal on show in Puyol and Pique’s antics.
But crucially, they also failed to show any respect for Cesc’s own wishes. Throughout this “saga” (I think it’s about time we started using that term) he’s refused to publicly declare a desire to leave Arsenal, instead dedicating his World Cup victory to the club and repeatedly stating his admiration for the institution, manager and fans.
It’ll be a while before I can put this up so it may feel a little out of date, but I wanted to have my say. The ironic thing about the whole episode is that Cesc is such an honourable guy that this incident is more likely to turn him off a move than on to it. He was embarrassed by players he would be calling team-mates. I simply hope Arsenal have the resolve to make the Catalan clowns regret their actions.
