Sunday, October 27, 2024, 1:25 p.m.
It is a detail that has not gone unnoticed on social networks. The Barça players celebrate euphorically in the locker room after beating Real Madrid 0-4 at the Santiago Bernabéu. Wojciech Szczęsny, the Polish goalkeeper signed by Barça after Ter Stegen’s injury, smokes to celebrate a victory that he experienced from the bench, where he is still awaiting his debut.
In the video you can clearly see how Szczesny removes the smoke after taking a puff. It is very far in the background of the image, far behind the foreground in which the pineapple of companions can be seen. Lamine Yamal next to him laughs when he sees what his partner has just done.
That the new signing for the Barça goalkeeper smoked is nothing new. “It’s a personal matter, I don’t harm anyone and I train twice as hard: I want them to judge me as a goalkeeper,” he defended himself after landing in Barcelona. And he vehemently announced that he does not plan to leave it.
Already during his time at Arsenal, with Arsène Wenger at the helm, he experienced a controversial episode due to his addiction in 2015. “I knew he smoked and I simply didn’t want him to do it in the locker room,” he recalled about a moment in which he was caught with a cigarette in the showers after a 2-0 defeat against Southampton. He faced a fine of £20,000.
«These are things that I do not change in my personal life and it is no one’s business if I smoke. It doesn’t affect, I think it doesn’t affect and what I do on the football field is work twice as hard,” he defended in statements to Mundo Deportivo. He assured that he does not do it “in front of the children so that they do not have a bad influence on them.” «Sometimes someone takes a photo of me hiding behind the trees, where I can’t see them. That’s not up to me. “I try to hide it and not show it to people,” he justified.
The Barcelona goalkeeper clarified that “if someone thinks that I will change the way I am in my personal life, they can think about it again because I am who I am.” «I’ve been like this my whole life and these things are just nobody’s business. “I want them to judge me as a goalkeeper and not for looking for stories where no one really cares,” he concluded.
