I have a deep, and entirely rational, hatred of soccer, and of play-acting, Alice-band-wearing, prima-donna soccer players. Imagine my snort of derision, therefore, when I read an article in the Telegraph, about some Argentinian player who was so upset and incensed by the Falklands War, that he refused to learn English:
Carlos Tevez has revealed he refused to learn to speak English during his time in the Premier League as he blamed the country for his uncle’s descent into alcoholism after fighting in the Falklands War.
The former West Ham, Manchester United and Manchester City forward, speaking in an interview with DSportsRadio back home in Argentina, said he had a “cultural problem with the English”.
The 39-year-old was so resolute in his refusal to speak English that he even told team-mates they would have to learn Spanish to converse with him.
The United Kingdom went to war with Argentina in 1982 after they invaded the Falklands in a bid to reclaim their lost territory, which Britain had claimed in 1833.
The war lasted just over two months, with Britain reclaiming the islands by forcibly retaking them. A total of 649 Argentinian troops were killed and another 1,657 wounded, while 255 British soldiers lost their lives and another 775 wounded.
“I had a cultural problem with the English,” Tevez said. “I didn’t want to learn English, I wanted them to learn Spanish”.
So the fact that his uncle was part of an invasion force that got their arses kicked by HM Forces has left this sad, pathetic little man hating all things British. The parallels with the Boer War are obvious: just as in the Falklands War, someone very stupidly decided to pick a fight with Great Britain and came off worse…. and yet there are still people who moan, and squeal, and play the victim about it now.
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I suspected Carlos is being rather economical with the truth there Chris! As there are plenty of clips of him being interviewed on you tube etc.
Funny that he wasn’t adverse to his wages being paid for seven years in GB pounds…
Didn’t hate us enough to refuse accepting our money. How he must have suffered those seven long years accepting those huge wodges of cash paid in British Sterling.
But if it’s true (which I doubt, as I imagine most footballers would tell him to ‘eff off’—a quick pic of them ‘taking a knee’ or sporting rainbow badges is one thing, but learning another language?), it wouldn’t paint us in a good light for not deporting him the instant he complained (sadly, pandering to those who hate us is just what we do nowadays: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8965881/Edinburgh-Castle-sign-hailing-hero-British-soldiers-replaced-complaint.html )
And losers playing the victim is par for the course—the story of Germany for starters (‘How dare you treat us harshly for starting and losing a war! Shh, stop talking about “Brest-Litovsk”.’); what’s remarkable is how much of the English-speaking peoples have bought into the various defeated’s narratives.
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