By Myles Palmer
MY PAL ALEXIS phoned today to complain that there’s no Arsenal stories this week.
Here’s one from Kaz,who just phoned : Vieira is in L’Equipe today(Wednesday).
To preview the World Cup each of the 23 players has been interviewed in a one-page piece about their perspective on life.
Vieira is the 22nd player featured.Zidane is in tomorrow.
PV4 talks about where he hangs out, where he shops.
He talks about his role being much more defensive in the France team than the Arsenal team.
Most interestingly, perhaps, he talks about the time he played at centreback for 20 minutes when Sol was injured.
He said : that position’s not for me. As we were leaving the pitch I said to Arsene : That position’s not for me!
It requires a lot of concentration, you can’t make a single mistake.
Patrick said he used to get a lot of cards for reactions but now he has learned.
He says Arsene has helped him to understand where he was going wrong, to learn from his mistakes.
He says he and Manu Petit don’t need to talk on the pitch, they just need a look.
But now, compared to 1998, he isn’t the junior player.
Of the young players on the bench in the final – Henry, Trezeguet – I was the only one that got on the pitch against Brazil.Because Desailly was sent off.
PV says : Merci, Marcel !
28th May 2002.