Ex-Arsenal star vows to continue smoking days after signing for Barcelona

WOJCIECH SZCZESNY has vowed not to quit smoking after signing for Barcelona.

The former Arsenal goalkeeper, 34, reversed his decision to retire in order to sign for Hansi Flick’s side.

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Despite re-entering high-level professional football, Szczesny is not about to give up smoking.

Speaking to Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo, he said: “There are things that I don’t change in my personal life and it’s nobody’s business if I smoke.

“I believe that it doesn’t affect what I do on the pitch, I work twice as hard.

“I don’t do it in front of kids because I don’t want to have a bad influence on them.

“Sometimes somebody will take a photo from the trees where I have a cigarette, that’s on them, not on me.

“If somebody thinks that I will change the way I am in my personal life they can think again because I am who I am. I’ve been this way my whole life.”

Szczesny hung up his gloves at the end of last season following seven years at Juventus.

But when Barca came calling following the serious injury suffered by their No1 Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Szczesny was tempted out of his brief retirement.

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The Pole is yet to debut for his new side, with Inaki Pena having started their last four games between the sticks.

Szczesny was famously caught smoking in the showers after Arsenal lost to Southampton in 2015.

Arsene Wenger subsequently fined him £20,000 and dropped him from the squad.

The homegrown keeper would never play for the Gunners again, joining Juventus in 2017 after a two-year loan at Roma.

In 2020, Szczesny opened up on what happened during an appearance on the Arsenal Nation podcast.

He said: “Back at that time I was smoking regularly and the boss knew it very well. He just didn’t want anybody smoking in the dressing rooms and I knew that also.

“Because of the emotion of the game, I had a cigarette after the game when the team was still in.

“I went in the corner of the showers, so it was at the other end of the dressing room and nobody could see me, and I lit one up.

“Somebody saw me, it wasn’t even the boss himself, and just reported it back to the boss. I saw him a couple of days later, he asked me if that was true and I said ‘yes’.

“He fined me and that was the end of it. He then said, ‘Look, you’re going to be out of the team for a little bit’, but there was no big bust-ups or big confrontations.

“I was very professional about it. I was fully expecting to be back in the team a few weeks later but we had a good run of form and David Ospina, who came in goal, played really well for those few games. He stayed in.

“That meant I was waiting and trying to win my place back in the team, or trying to convince him that I was still the best goalkeeper at the club by going out on loan. That sounds strange but sometimes it’s the best way of doing it.”

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