Botti: Playing for Barcelona is a “mistake”!

Anwar Ibrahim (Cairo)

The French “veteran” Emmanuel Petit, 53 years old, the world champion who won the 1998 World Cup, and currently a broadcaster on the Monte Carlo Sport Network, spoke about his professional experience in Barcelona in 2000, coming from his English team Arsenal, after his marriage to the Spanish actress Agathe de La Fontaine. , who arrived in England in 1997, and was behind his encouragement to leave Arsenal and go with him to Spain to play for Barcelona, ​​which actually happened at the beginning of the third millennium.
Botti said on the Astro Stadium platform that he regretted his decision to leave for Spain and play for Barca, and if he had gone back in time, he would certainly have made another choice.
Botti, who started as a player in French club Monaco, did not succeed in presenting his credentials at the Camp Nou, and did not adapt during the only season he spent there, which he was forced to do due to his marriage to the Spanish actress. Despite this, he admitted that he sees Barcelona and Real Madrid as the biggest clubs. The world, but he said, “I should have stayed in England with Arsenal.”
Indeed, Botti did not last long in Spain, and he quickly returned to England again, but this time to play for Chelsea and continued with him for 3 years. He said: Sometimes life is not bright in any new place you seek to go to, and it would have been better for me to stay, as I was at Arsenal. .
He scolded himself: When you enjoy love, happiness, and success somewhere, why do you leave?
Botti separated from his wife in 2002, after he had a daughter with her, and in 2004 he retired from football permanently, which – with a strange irony – was the same year in which his former club Arsenal won the English Premier League championship without defeat.
Emmanuel Botti began his professional career as a player in Monaco from 1988 to 1997, where he played 222 matches and scored 4 goals. Then he traveled to England to play for Arsenal from 1997 to 2000 (85 matches and 9 goals) and from there to Barcelona until 2001 (23 matches and one goal). Then he settled in at Chelsea (55 matches, two goals) until he retired from football in 2004.