Pepe: I like the atmosphere of Marseille's stadium the most; the Gunners fans feel at home

Recently, Nicolas Pepe was interviewed by Arsenal's official website, in which he emphasized the importance of fans watching the game for the team and individual play.

It is worth mentioning that since joining Arsenal in the summer window of 2019, especially in the last two rounds of the Premier League last season, Pepe has performed very well with fans watching. Arsenal travelled to Crystal Palace's home stadium in the 37th round of the league last season, and with 2,000 fans watching, Pepe helped the team beat Crystal Palace 3-1 with a double performance, and four days later, with 10,000 fans entering the Emirates Stadium to watch, Pepe once again helped the team beat Brighton 2-0 with a double score.

In this regard, Pepe frankly admitted that the players do not like to play in the empty stadium, and he also missed the fans for creating a special vitality for the game on the spot.

Pepe said: "For me, playing under the watchful eye of the fans will make me play better in the game, I will become more focused, thus contributing to a high-quality game. ”

A former Ligue 1 fixture, he recalls that Marseille's Velodrome stadium is the best stadium he has ever felt. The Velodrome Stadium is the largest stadium in France, large enough to accommodate 67,000 people, but it is well known that Marseille's home fans are very unhappy with visiting and visiting fans. Pepe also recalled a match he played against Marseille while playing for Lille. At the end of January 2019, in the 22nd round of Ligue 1, Lille visited the Velodrome Stadium and defeated Marseille 2-1, in which Pepe mei scored twice to help the team win.

Pepe recalled: "The atmosphere of that game was the best stadium atmosphere I have ever felt so far in my career, the team won the game 2-1, I scored a penalty in the first half. For the first time in that game I felt a fan shining a laser on my face, and when I scored a goal they threw beer bottles at me, which was terrible, but I thought the situations were funny, the atmosphere was just too powerful. ”

"If you're a Marseille fan or you're playing for Marseille, you feel the importance of the atmosphere on the pitch for a team to win at home. In France, and indeed throughout Europe, an atmosphere like the home of Marseille is rare. ”

Although pepe saw the atmosphere of the day as exciting, the fans in the stands frequently created tension, and the game was suspended for 40 minutes, and fans threw incendiary bombs into the stadium.

He continued: "It is because of its fanatical atmosphere that the home stadium of Marseille has become my favourite stadium. I scored two goals in that game and the fans made a lot of noise in the stands, but I didn't think it was their hostility to me. ”

'On the other hand, when I was at Lille, if we couldn't help the team win the game, the fans wouldn't be kind to us, it was really tough, but fortunately we kept trying to move forward and the situation finally changed.

'It's worth mentioning that Lille's home field has the same good atmosphere as Marseille's home stadium, and it's still the 18/19 season, we beat Paris Saint-Germain 5-1 at home, I also scored in that game, when the stadium was full, the scene was spectacular, it was the most intense game I've ever played.

In an interview, Pepe said he would not be afraid of the crowds on the pitch, all of which stemmed from his personal experience 15 years ago.

He added: "When I was a kid, I spent most of my time playing football near Paris. I've been to the 93rd arrondissement of Paris, a region northeast of Paris that is full of drug trade and smuggling. I remember the race was usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and my parents would drive me there. When I was 12 years old, there were a lot of people coming to the competition, and the atmosphere was very good, I didn't expect so many people to come and watch a small inter-regional game, but I liked the atmosphere. ”

Asked about his first live viewing experience, he said it was at the Parc des Princes, the home of Paris Saint-Germain.

He continued: "Now I can't remember what kind of game it was, I was so young, I just remember the team I played for had a partnership with Paris Saint-Germain, they gave us tickets for a few games, and then I came to the game with my friends and the experience was so good! ”

"Now, I usually watch 10 games a week. If there were Champions League and Europa League games this week, I would watch them too, but I wouldn't watch the whole one, I would choose to open it halfway through the game. The Champions League is my favourite tournament to watch, and one of my favourite Champions League games was Barca vs Chelsea in the 08/09 semi-finals, and Iniesta scored a penalty in the last minute, which was simply dramatic. ”

"I also watch La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 matches, but I don't look at Serie A very much, except for the focus of the competition. Occasionally I watch MLB games, but only occasionally. ”

"I still love watching the NBA, and I dream of watching the NBA Finals, but it's not happening yet. For the NBA I don't have a fixed favorite team, I don't support any team, I just look at the game. ”

'But for tennis, I like to watch Djokovic, I always watch him play against Nadal, and if he has other key games I will watch too.'

Now that the league has been played several rounds and the fans have returned to the stadium, he talked about the difference between the previous empty matches and the presence of fans, saying: "The difference between the two is that the empty games feel lifeless, the players can clearly hear each other's cries on the field, and the cheers of the fans are far away, but that is what each of us misses." ”

'To be honest, before I became a professional, a lot of the games I played were played in empty stadiums, so empty games didn't surprise me, but empty games really didn't do any good at all.

"I like the Fans in England, they're closer to the players on the sidelines, they're intimate, they're really fanatical in support of the team. When you walk to the sidelines, the excited crowd will push you. Whether it's an attack or a pass on the pitch, the fans respond, but I don't think so in Ligue 1. ”

"The songs the fans sang were also interesting and I loved them. One of my favorites is the Yaya Toure song sung by Manchester City fans. Not only that, but I often run into fans on the street, and one of the times I remember most was when I was on vacation in Miami, I met an Arsenal fan who showed me the Arsenal logo tattoo on his calf and said to me: 'This year is a year for Arsenal!' ’”

(Editor: Yao Fan)