Former Sporting midfielder Aldo Duscher has given a big interview to Portuguese newspaper Record this Wednesday, mostly recalling his time in Lisbon and revealing his plans to become a manager.
But one of his most interesting quotes were about his years at Deportivo La Coruña, the club he has most appearances for, having played there for seven years.
Duscher has recalled the time when he injured David Beckham at Old Trafford just a couple of months before the 2002 World Cup. He’s blamed the English media for making a big circus out of it at the time, even when the Manchester United star himself was fine with it.
“I got into the ball badly, he jumped, and when he fell, he got injured. It was my fault, but the referee did not even show me yellow or anything”, Duscher told Record.
“We lost this game. When I left, I was hot-headed. They asked me if I was going to apologize and I said no. ‘If he was a Deportivo player, nobody would apologize’. What did I do!? I arrived in La Coruña and had 50 journalists at the door of my house. I ended up doing a press conference and apologized. Luckily, he went to the World Cup. Then he scored a penalty goal against us.”
“There was a telephone call, three, because I couldn’t speak English. I apologized, I told him I wished that he went to the World Cup. He told me that everything was fine, that I should be calm. But the press was very nationalistic. He was their Messi and it was two months before the World Cup. What’s curious is that, after all that, Manchester United wanted to sign me up from La Coruña when Roy Keane retired in 2005.”
Asked if there really was an offer from Manchester United, Duscher said: “Yes. But it was difficult to negotiate with the president of La Coruña and I could not have problems because it was World Cup season and I had to play. But it’s strange that a whole country, or a city, does not like you, and then, after a short time, the same club want to sign you. I haven’t had another chance. It was then or never.”
Duscher has played for Newell’s Old Boys, Sporting, Deportivo La Coruña, Racing Santander, Sevilla, Espanyol, Barcelona from Ecuador and Enosis Paralimni. He finished his career in 2012 at the Cypriot side.
