While he admits to have had six great years while playing for fellow Frenchman Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, midfielder Robert Pires is looking to erase a bitter Champions League memory with a better one, this time for Spanish side Villarreal, which hosts the Gunners on Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the 2008-09 competition.
Stung by what he could only liken to a “practical joke” when subbed out after only 18 minutes (after goalkeeper Jens Lehmann had been ejected) in Arsenal’s 2006 Champions League final appearance in Pires’ Paris hometown, he left his longtime EPL home after enduring what he saw as Wenger’s lack of trust. Now three years later, Pires admits that the event “remains painful,” but “it cannot erase six years when I won trophies, learned from him, grew in confidence and did well with France’s national team.”
Although he swears revenge is not on his mind, he does confess that “it was my goal to face Arsenal at least once before retiring and to say goodbye to tremendous fans who were great to me in London,” adding quite gentlemanly, that “if I’m lucky enough to score, I know that I won’t celebrate, simply as a gesture of respect to a club and their fans, which have meant so much in my career.”