The Independent<\/a>, was fined after being caught smoking. That led to the chant Barcelona fans began singing after immediately connecting with him. They shout \u2018Szczesny fumador (the smoker)\u2019.<\/p>\nBarcelona have had two street parades to celebrate trophies since he joined the club. At the first one, he wore a straw hat bearing the words: \u2018Fumador\u2019 (smoker). At the second, he joined some fans in singing his chant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never had my own chant before, so that\u2019s already a surprising thing,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoyed it. I try to be as authentic as I can, and people seem to appreciate it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might not seem the most professional thing in the world, but I am who I am. People know that I have one addiction that I cannot get rid of.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think even that feels authentic to them, because I would imagine that a lot of players have certain addictions, whether it\u2019s nicotine or alcohol or gambling, I don\u2019t know. But there\u2019s one player who is quite open about it, and that\u2019s me. And it\u2019s an addiction that I\u2019m not even willing to fight. I embrace it, and maybe it just feels authentic to people.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t think I smoke because they saw a hidden photo of me from the paparazzi. I admitted to my addiction, and it\u2019s an addiction that a lot of people in the world have.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can probably relate to it. I don\u2019t even think about recommending people to take up smoking. I think it\u2019s a terrible thing and everybody should avoid it. It\u2019s a weakness of mine, but I\u2019m fine with that weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n
That authenticity follows into how he acts around the rest of the squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m aware of the persona that people see now as the oldest player in the dressing room, but the one who smiles a lot and is very relaxed. But that\u2019s not the only thing that is behind the person. Sometimes what you show on the front page is not all that there actually is.<\/p>\n
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\n Szczesny, with Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha, celebrates winning the Spanish Super Cup in January (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cI could shut up and not smile and not enjoy my life as much and try to be judged more as a professional footballer and a person who actually has this big knowledge of the game, which I can pass on to the younger players of the team. But I choose not to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Case in point: before this interview, Szczesny approached the young players in Barcelona\u2019s squad, pretending to sign their shirts and taking photos with them as if they were fans. They were in fits of laughter.<\/p>\n
This is a very common sight around the goalkeeper: he\u2019s always in a good mood, cracking jokes and creating a great atmosphere in the dressing room. It\u2019s one of the things head coach Hansi Flick values most about him.<\/p>\n
When Barcelona were knocked out of the Champions League by Inter Milan in 2025, Szczesny comforted a crying Gerard Martin in the dressing room. There\u2019s a sense that he always knows what to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken a long time to be able to play with almost no emotions on the pitch\u201d, he says. \u201cI played for a club (Arsenal) at a very young age that I also supported as a fan, and that just took a lot out of me. Every time we won games, I cheered as a player but also as a fan \u2014 and when we lost, I was sad as a fan as well as a player. It was just a lot of emotions to deal with, and then you have to prepare for the next game in three days, and you\u2019re kind of not ready for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I left the team, I found out that the best thing for me to perform at the best level is to be completely emotionally out of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of only treated it as a job. It doesn\u2019t sound nice, but it was what was best for me. A lot of my meditation was about calming down all the emotions and focusing only on what\u2019s in front of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a little bit away from the joy of winning the game because you are not as emotionally attached to the result. But it also saves you from suffering when you lose games, when the moments are more difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that was not positive for my performances. It was a conscious decision. I found meditation is one of the techniques that helps me a lot, a lot of breathing exercises.\u201d<\/p>\n
His days as an Arsenal player came to an end in 2017, but his commitment as a fan led him to follow their title-winning season from afar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suffered a lot (during) the Champions League final. But to win the Premier League after 22 years\u2026 It\u2019s a big relief because I\u2019ve waited for it for a very long time and I\u2019m very happy they built a project of probably one of the best clubs in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was there, we had one season when we were on top of the league for a very long time, and we lost in the end. I felt we were the best team in the league. But we were a very young, inexperienced team, and in the end, when it mattered, we fell short.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt still hurts because it\u2019s the one trophy that I haven\u2019t won in professional football that I would have loved to win\u2026 winning the Premier League with Arsenal. It\u2019s still bugging me from the inside, but as a fan I\u2019m very happy about what happened this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cArsenal is a place where I made my dream come true. Emotionally, it\u2019s the maximum that I believe anybody can achieve: playing for the club of your dreams. I\u2019ve achieved the dream. It\u2019s the peak of your career. It\u2019s a beautiful story, although I only won three trophies with Arsenal: two FA Cups and a Community Shield.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will probably always be the most beautiful part of my career. The one filled with the most passion. It was also the start of my career. I was very hungry, very determined to show people that I belong at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Szczesny during Arsenal\u2019s FA Cup final win over Aston Villa in May 2015 (Paul Gilham\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
After nearly two decades at the top of European football, Szczesny finds himself in unfamiliar territory. For the first time in his career, he begins a season as the clear No 2 behind Barcelona\u2019s new first-choice goalkeeper, Joan Garcia.<\/p>\n
During their years together at Juventus, Gianluigi Buffon taught him that a veteran goalkeeper can still shape a team without making life harder for the man ahead of him. And that\u2019s exactly what he is giving to Garcia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to make sure that he doesn\u2019t feel challenged from my side. My ambition is still there, and I still believe I can give a lot of good things to the team on the pitch, but I felt that it was important that in his first season at the top level he feels all the support in the world and not a challenge from my side. (I also want) to help him grow and give him a little advice in training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I see something that he can improve, it feels a little bit uncomfortable because he\u2019s a better goalkeeper than me. But I see that he wants to learn; he wants to get new information. Sometimes there are things that maybe I can tell him, although I can\u2019t even do them anymore (laughs) because I\u2019m not at his level, but I feel that my knowledge of the game is big and I can still help him. He\u2019s willing to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had Gigi (Buffon) as my No 2 at the end of his career, and I never felt challenged by him, so this might be a subconscious decision of mine because of what I was given by Gigi, I would want to give to Joan. I\u2019m still friends with Gigi today, and we\u2019re still in touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hopefully when I finish playing, Joan will be able to appreciate me trying to help him and not challenge him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel needed by the team, and I feel useful even when I don\u2019t play. That\u2019s why I decided to renew my contract and to stay until the end of the season. It\u2019s challenging because of the level that we have, and I want to make sure that I\u2019m also at that level.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that makes me proud of myself every time I finish training, and I feel that I can still do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t always have to be the No 1 on the pitch in order to be able to help the team and help them deal with certain situations because you have the experience. I\u2019ve lived a lot of difficult moments, a lot of good moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I can pass the experience on to younger players. It\u2019s a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In September 2024, Wojciech Szczesny thought his football career was over. He had fallen out of love with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[366,25632,92,187,1238,301,100,1644],"class_list":["post-63470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-arsenal","tag-associazione-sportiva-roma","tag-barcelona","tag-champions-league","tag-juventus","tag-la-liga","tag-premier-league","tag-serie-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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