Bayer Leverkusen made a joke about Arsenal’s starting goalkeeper. Petr Cech didn’t find it very funny.
The German club on Twitter took a shot across Cech’s bow for a slight (and ultimately not costly) blunder during Arsenal’s opening day loss to Manchester City.
Cech, starting in net ahead of former Bayer goalkeeper Bernd Leno, horribly mishit a back-pass from Matteo Guendouzi that skipped hard to his right and just missed tucking inside the far post for an own-goal. Bayer Leverkusen, seeing the mistake with Leno on the bench, tweeted, “We know a guy...” in response to someone posting video of the near-miss.
The 36-year-old wasn’t very happy with the attempt at humor, urging the German club to do some research on “fair competition, professionalism, and sportsmanship.”
.@Arsenal we share important values which make us a big club not only on the football side . Fair competition, professionalism and sportsmanship are the biggest ones you teach young footballers and it’s sad to see when other clubs don’t share the same values. .@bayer04_en
— Petr Cech (@PetrCech) August 13, 2018
Leverkusen responded to Cech’s tweet, attempting to backtrack by saying, “Hi Petr. It seems our joke about wanting to see Leno, our former player, in action has been taken a bit more harshly/personally than intended. It was only a bit of banter. We’re all for the values you’ve stated and wish you and your big club all the best. Nice 1v1 save on Aguero!”
Leno was bought this summer for a reported $28.5 million fee, with former backup David Ospina reportedly on his way out, although no move has materialized just yet.
