It can be hard to maintain an international jet setting football career, but missing your flight and not showing up for a game is a more serious offence than you might consider it to be as Yannick Carrasco has discovered to his cost as freetips.com reports.
It is no secret that Arsenal has their sights set on the 25-year-old player but how they will feel about this misdemeanor remains to be seen. You see reliability is kind of important for a player at any level but in the premier league perhaps even more so. It turns out that current boss at Dalian was so unimpressed with the player missing a game after failing to correctly negotiate the airport after an international match for Belgium that they have suspended the player.
After missing a connecting flight Carrasco did issue a Twitter-based apology to fans, but that was not good enough for his club which issued the following statement. ‘Yannick Carrasco of the Dalian Football Club was absent from the away game against Hebei China Fortune and missed training. The club now imposes the following penalties on him: Order Carrasco to apologise to the team within three days and stop training. The club has always attached importance to the team’s discipline construction, and no individual is above the collective. The club treats everyone equally.’
The attitude of some club’s leaders and teammates towards me is incomprehensible to me given my commitment and performance with the team so far. The team needs me and I want to help the team. This problem need to be solved.
— Yannick Carrasco (@CarrascoY21) June 21, 2019
Some might consider this to be harsh, but the club firmly believes that the penalty has to apply, with the water being further muddied by the accusation from teammates that it was a deliberate move to make sure he did not have to play in the game. It turns out he had pulled a similar stunt to get out of matches before as his teammate Yu Ziqia explained on social media.
‘When we played Shanghai Greenland Shenhua, you deliberately got a fourth yellow card (in the season) and got a suspension to avoid playing Shanghai SIPG, and then you went back to Europe ahead of schedule.
When we played Hebei China Fortune, you told the club your plane was late. If you come back one day earlier, how could you be late? Now you are back, but you don’t even move in training. When we play training matches, you just stand around the pitch, you do not attack and do not defend. The atmosphere of team training has been ruined. As a professional football player, training and games are as important as life. No matter how important a person is, he cannot override the team. I really hope we can say a nice goodbye to you just like we welcomed you at the beginning!’
His time with Atletico Madrid was considered successful, but his move to China has not gone well. What his issue is with his current placement is unclear, except that he wants to return to Europe, but Unai Emery is unlikely to be impressed by such underhand and childish behaviour, and might well reconsider whether this is the best fit for his team.
