I will not give up cigarettes! Barcelona goalkeeper defends his bad practice – Sport.cz

The story of the Polish goalkeeper in recent months can be considered somewhat turbulent. He hung up his football boots at the end of last season, after seven years in the jersey of Juventus, no other challenge attracted him. But in September, Marc-André ter Stegen, Barcelona’s main man between the sticks, was seriously injured.

This happened after the end of the transfer period, so the famous team only had to look for free players. He considered several names, reportedly including Jiří Pavlenko and Tomáš Vaclík. But when Szczesny offered to ditch his goalkeeper properties and return to the football carousel, the choice fell on him.

Borec, who has 84 starts for the national team, has become famous as one of the active smokers among football players, in addition to his great saves. In an interview with the Spanish Mundo Deportivo, he was asked if he intended to retire. After all, many doctors would confirm that cigarettes and high performance are not a good combination…

But Szczesny has a different opinion, confirmed by personal experience. “What I do in my personal life is nobody’s business. I believe that cigarettes do not affect me in any way on the field. On the other hand, I work twice as hard in training,” said the Polish goalkeeper. “I just try to avoid smoking in front of my kids so I don’t set a bad example for them. But if someone takes a picture of me lighting up outside, that’s not my problem. That’s just me, I’ve been that way all my life,” he said.

At the same time, Szczesny is not the only professional who likes to smoke. His smoking partner was Radja Nainggolan while he was still in AS Rome, and in the Czech football pool we can remember the former offensive stunner Jiří Štajner.

But the younger generation prefers other forms of nicotine use, mainly because of the effects of smoking on the lungs. A recent phenomenon among athletes, for example, is bags with tobacco (called snus) or nicotine patches, which are similarly placed under the bill. According to the English media, every fifth professional in the country rides them.