Petit: I regret joining Barcelona. Catalan nationalism borders on racism

"Maybe I should have gone to Manchester United and had a chance to play at Old Trafford with Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham and co. Another mistake from myself".
The former France international was also very critical of Catalan nationalism: "I arrived at a very bad time. There was a war in the dressing room between Dutch and Catalan players. And on top of it we had a manager who didn't have enough strength or charisma to manage the team. Politics and nationalism was too much for me in the dressing room. I was so happy to join Barcelona but I just wanted to concentrate on football. Every day I was dealing with things I wasn't supposed to do", said Petit. "As soon as I arrived people said 'don't try to learn Castilian [Spanish], you have to speak Catalan'. I said 'I'm in Spain, no?' and they said 'no, you're in Catalonia'. I'm fed up with that kind of thing. I understand their identity but when it's too much, it's very close to racism. We're talking about football, not religion or politics. I wanted to leave. I thought I made a big mistake", he concluded.


http://www.marca.com/en/2015/09/26/en/football/barcelona/1443271093.html

Cool.

there were Catalan players in Barça at that time ? other that Xavi and Puyol who were kids and had no say in the dressing room , i can't recall a single one from that era.

No, every part of town should have it's own language, culture, identity, nationality, and borders. You go, girls!

More than a club.

lol forget that noise. If I were a professional footballer I would take the Tevez approach and not even try to learn the local language....why bother.

I'd pick up a few words here and there, but I wouldnt go out of my way to learn. I remember, like in College, trying to learn so much Danish before I went to Denmark. Got there, and people DIDNT EVEN TRY to speak to me in Danish. Just went plain English, and the same thing happened to me when I went to Japan with my first job.

If i were to ask myself whether i would go through all the trouble of learning a new language, i think the aspect that one is a near dead language and the other is a a multinational language definitely comes into play...

farfan wrote:there were Catalan players in Barça at that time ? other that Xavi and Puyol who were kids and had no say in the dressing room , i can't recall a single one from that era.

guardiola, gerard, gabri, de la pena, sergi. even though the last 3 were probably not catalan, they played in the youth team, and that youth team has a way of ingratiating their ways and beliefs into youngsters who aren't from the area. iniesta sometimes speaks catalan, he isn't catalan but he has expressed his support for them, since he obviously spent a lot of time there. also they had two madrid cast-aways in luis enrique and alfonso, and obviously when you leave one side for the other, you fly the flag of the other almost like its your hometown club.

petit was a class midfielder but the politics ruined his time there. i recall him saying the coach got one of the dutch players to ask him what position he played when he got signed. he once stated in an interview on tv after a poor game that it seemed everyone wasn't on the same page, and the spanish/catalan players gave him a bit of a lecture in the locker room....to be fair though, its not necessarily a barcelona thing, happens in all squads...it gets problematic when your background or clique becomes dominant even when ure not playing well, and a guy who's obviously good is being pushed down

and imo nationalism, politics, race, and religion should have no place in sports. i've heard people say sports is probably the closest thing in this world we have to a meritocracy and I agree with that. the best players (taking into account things like professionalism, and work ethic) should always play and like their teammates, be made to feel comfortable......but alas, this happens everywhere

He FELT that way. I'd totally understand someone feeling overwhelmed by that nationalism however Petit seems to regret a lot from his career lol .

can't blame him. the guy left arsenal at his peak, was crazy in that arsenal side, held his own in a strong french side with guys like zizou and djorkaeff, and then went to barcelona where the coach didn't even know his position. guardiola was very much on the decline when petit joined them, but he was the captain and the leader....a case of the grass not always being greener. similar case with michael owen at madrid (even though owen too was slowing down by the time he joined)

And we should discuss this.....why?

Betty La Fea wrote:lol forget that noise. If I were a professional footballer I would take the Tevez approach and not even try to learn the local language....why bother.

I'd pick up a few words here and there, but I wouldnt go out of my way to learn. I remember, like in College, trying to learn so much Danish before I went to Denmark. Got there, and people DIDNT EVEN TRY to speak to me in Danish. Just went plain English, and the same thing happened to me when I went to Japan with my first job.

I pretty much agree lol. Do enough so that your performance isn't hindered then unless you feel strongly about it, ignore it. Going to a foriegn club and trying to care about whatever age old issues they have in whatever area they're based in isn't going to help you play some soccerball. Turn up, train hard, play well. Rinse, repeat.

The thing is I get where the nationalism is coming from. Chino, catalonia is an actual region. spain=\= catalonia. its like saying algeria is france. well, no thats not how it works.
Would you like it if someone told you mexico was part of spain?
i'm not a fan of nationalism, but you have to respect the language and culture of certain places. You can't just be like, "well shit, it says spain on the map so im just gonna speak spanish".
Its the same thing with seriously any region.

catalonia as a region are also sugardaddying spain because the rest of the country wont pick up the slack and they are one of if not most prosperous regions while not even being spainiard. Castillians, andalusians are spanish. catalans arent

Pedram wrote:Well this is the product of living under Franco's fascist regime, his far right policies like banning the Catalan language radicalized the Catalan people.

Absolutely. While we're at it, let's blame the US and Israel for radicalizing the Middle Eastern people through decades of colonialism and injustice and let's sympathize with ISIS and Al Qaeda...after all, the far right policies of the US and Israel must have radicalized them.

Jesus man, try to think like an independent and not as a fan. If your club is doing something wrong, make sure to point it out and not come up with pathetic excuses to justify it.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

Pedram wrote:Well this is the product of living under Franco's fascist regime, his far right policies like banning the Catalan language radicalized the Catalan people.

Absolutely. While we're at it, let's blame the US and Israel for radicalizing the Middle Eastern people through decades of colonialism and injustice and let's sympathize with ISIS and Al Qaeda...after all, the far right policies of the US and Israel must have radicalized them.

Jesus man, try to think like an independent and not as a fan. If your club is doing something wrong, make sure to point it out and not come up with pathetic excuses to justify it.

straw man argument buddy
actually the us and israel are to blame you're the one making opinions based on the media and not fact lets be honest

the "radicals" in catalonia want independence
oh right, so wanting to be an independent nation is being radical. let me repeat. catalonia was not part of spain for HUNDREDS of years. is germany and france the same country? didnt think so.

It is difficult to move to any club in Europe without something bordering on racism tbh.

While I honestly can't fully understand the whole Nationalistic/separatists stuff since there is no issues in my country when it comes to that, I do know regret very well and Petit seems to have a lot of that apparently.

A fine midfielder who I don't blame for joining Barcelona at the time. They were a much better attraction than Arsenal but even then, without knowing anything about the whole Catalan stuff, thought it was a bad move. Still, if I could remind him that he was a World Champion and scored more goals in a WC final than Messi y Cristiano put together, I hope that brings him some solace.

And he had wonderful hair too.

Petit is basically lying. Surely, someone told him it would be a nice gesture if he learned catalan. Every Barça player is told that.

However, everyone is free to learn the language they want and no one is pressured.

I only recall Kluivert, Toure and Iniesta who learned and spoke Catalan, and none of the other footballers was ever slammed for not talking it/learning it. Hell, Neymar doesn't even speak spanish and no one says anything (and Spanish and Portuguese are almost the same language... dude is a lazy mofo ).

Also, Petit should mind his own business, as it is well known that when he was here he was far from being a professional.