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US-born footballers Timothy Weah and Weston McKennie, both Juventus players, are facing the wrath of Italy after criticising their cuisine in a question-and-answer podcast for the in-house media.
“You guys don’t have variety – it’s pasta, pizza, fish, steak,” McKennie said, when asked about Italian food. “You know what the problem is with Italian food? It’s great, it’s good specific food that you do very well, but in America if I go to a burger joint or a steakhouse, then I go to another place 10 minutes down the street, I’m still eating a burger, but it’s a completely different taste. In Italy, I go to this restaurant and get a pesto pasta, I go 10 minutes down the street and order a pesto pasta, it’s the same thing.” Weah said he “prefers Italian-American food” to the real thing.
The comments spurred inevitable backlash in Italy. The most vocal was former Arsenal and Fiorentina goalkeeper Emiliano Viviano. “The United States is the country with the worst food in the world. They would even deep-fry the soles of their shoes. If I was [Italian prime minister Giorgia] Meloni, I wouldn’t let him back into Italy!” he fumed.
“How can you say there’s no variety in Italian cuisine? His very definition of ‘variety’ irritated me. McKennie, there are 200 million of you Americans and all you ever eat are hamburgers. The truth is, all the food in America was brought there by other nations. I just want to tell McKennie that he has achieved the incredible feat of managing to unite all of Italy against him. It is not about fans anymore, he can be insulted by absolutely everybody,” he added.
McKennie’s teammates were petrified when they he once suggested cookies and brownies in pasta and “ranch dressing on pizza”. Recently, he suggested a special recipe of pasta with pesto, tomato and chicken, according to the club’s website.
Days ago, they were involved in an awkward encounter at the White House when Donald Trump initiated a debate on transgender women in sport. “It was weird,” Weah, an outspoken critic of Trump, told reporters of the Oval Office visit after the game. “I was caught by surprise, honestly, when he started talking about politics, with Iran and everything. I was kind of like, I just want to play football … They just told us that we have to go, and I had no choice but to go. So I guess it was a cool experience, obviously being in the White House for the first time, it’s always wonderful. But I’m not one for politics, so it wasn’t that exciting.”
Trump, who had signed an executive order banning transgender participants from women’s sports, sought the opinion of Juventus players and staff on the subject. “Could a woman make your team, fellas,” Trump asked. Juventus’s general manager, Damien Comolli, replied to douse the fire:“We have a very good women’s team,” he said of Juventus Women, who are the reigning Serie A champions.
Pat came Trump’s retort: “But they should be playing with women.”
