Words have a major impact.
This cannot be truer than in the world of football, where every word you utter as a star player/coach of a big club will be scrutinized under a magnifying lens. Bayern Munich’s Lennart Karl learned this the hard way after an interview at a fan event led to him admitting that he’d want to play for Real Madrid at some point.
In a Kicker interview with Frank Linkesch and Mario Krischel (as captured by @iMiaSanMia), Karl was asked if he had “learned to think three times before every public appearance and every question”, to which Karl responded, “I’m generally someone who says what I think. But I have to be aware that in public, people watch how I express myself.”
While a 17-year-old can be cut a lot of slack for voicing his thoughts without some basic “PR-proofing”, a star player of his magnitude will never have it easy, with all the media eyes trained on him. It is good that he realizes this however, and we can rest assured that he will definitely receive training that will make him more interview-savvy with time.
Upon further query on whether this is “the price of fame”, Karl conceded that “that’s probably true, yes.” He then added, “although the word ‘fame’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”
Well… you’re famous now, Lenny. Whether you like it or not.
And fame is a double-edged sword.
So yeah, maybe you do not want to be a Madridista.