Poor old Granit Xhaka, we’ve all done stuff we didn’t want to do in order to fit in.
Maybe your older brother said you could hang out with him and his mates if you gave them your Premier League stickers or promised to do something embarrassing like support Liverpool for the rest of your life.
But you’re not alone. We’ve all been there. Everyone has had to face some sort of initiation at one point or another. Hell, even future Prime Ministers (allegedly) have to go through it from time to time.
https://twitter.com/Grant_Johnson87/status/645727764608249856
For most of us, though, that sort of stuff stops once we become adults. Instead of doing something childish like a straight forward initiation, we develop more mature and complex habits like going on team-building exercises with work that just end up uniting you and your colleagues against the management who forced you to do another bloody team building exercise. It’s way healthier.
But things are a little less complicated for footballers. With the high turnover of players from year to year, it can be difficult to build up a strong squad mentality in a short space of time.
When you throw in the fact that many of these incoming players are young and moving to a country they have never been to before (and likely don’t speak the language) there are only a few ways to make sure everyone gets along quickly.
This perhaps explains why football clubs persist with initiations for new players, especially at a club like Arsenal.
This summer has seen the Gunners splash out £30m on Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka.
Arsenal reserve goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez (remember him?) shared a video of what appears to be his new teammate’s initiation where he is forced to sing awkwardly with only the sound of Arsenal players clumsily smashing on their tables as a backing track.
Welcome to @Arsenal, Granit Xhaka 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/pxuhhqtesX
— Emi Martínez (@emimartinezz1) July 27, 2016
But this isn’t something new they’ve broken out for Xhaka, as they put former Southampton defender Calum Chambers through it too a few years back.
Don’t quit the day jobs, boys.
