Former Roma and current Stoke City attacker, Bojan, spoke to the BBC about his time in Italy with the Giallorossi. These are his words:
“In Spain and Italy, when you win you are the best and when you lose, you are very bad. In Italy, one game you win and score, you cannot go in the street because the people are so enthusiastic, and when you lose they go crazy. After the game they wait for you.”
He continued, “When I was in Rome, we lost a game and the fans were waiting for us at the training ground. The next game was against Lazio, the game of the year. They said ‘today you can lose but the next game there is no excuse not to win’. But it wasn’t said that nicely. Many players don’t care about that pressure. There are players who are more sensitive. Here in England, you don’t feel this and can enjoy playing. It’s different to play here than those places.”
The Spaniard also went on to discuss the “new Messi” tag that followed him upon moving to Roma: “My first year I scored 10 goals in La Liga. Then people started saying ‘yeah, the new Messi’. You can do nothing about this. In the end, I know my qualities and I know I’m not Messi. I’m Bojan. If people say ‘this guy was not the new Messi’, yeah I was not the new Messi. It’s not easy. Messi scores three goals every game. If you score one goal, you’re not Messi. When I went to Rome and Milan, you go there not as Bojan, you go as a new star, a new Messi. So if you go there and play good, it’s not enough. You need to be the best, you need to be the Messi. That’s the thing that didn’t help me. At the beginning it’s difficult to understand but with experience you know what you can do.”
