Mbappé, Vinicius and Konaté ditch Ceuta shirt before Elche-Real Madrid | OneFootball

A shirt can be worn for just a few seconds and end up generating far more talk than ninety minutes of football. Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappé and Ibrahima Konaté were at the center of the most striking image from the build-up to Elche-Real Madrid with the shirt in support of Ceuta that players from both teams wore before the match.

The images make it possible to reconstruct a particularly striking sequence. Vinicius initially appears wearing the shirt, but with the sleeves rolled up in such a way that the slogan “We are all caballas” is hidden. Mbappé puts his on with a grimace and, as he walks toward the pitch, looks at his Brazilian teammate and ends up rolling his up in a similar way.

Shortly afterwards, just after stepping onto the grass at the Martínez Valero, both of them take it off for good. Konaté only wore it with the sleeves rolled up for the guard of honour, but ran onto the pitch carrying it scrunched up in his hand. The only three Madrid players not to wear it. They’ll know why.

The scene became even more obvious during the traditional guard of honour before the match. While the Elche players and the rest of the Real Madrid squad continued wearing the shirt in solidarity with Ceuta, Mbappé, Vinicius and Konaté were already without it. The images show perfectly well what they did. What they do not show is why they did it.

None of the three had previously given a public explanation for their behaviour, despite knowing that LaLiga would make that gesture in every match this round, and turning the sequence into a political statement would require adding an intention that the images alone cannot prove. What they do show is conduct different from that of the rest of their teammates and a terrible lack of empathy toward the country of the team that pays their wages.

The episode also takes on greater significance after what had happened just a few hours earlier with Ez Abde. The Moroccan international for Betis had worn the same shirt before the match against Villarreal and ended up receiving an avalanche of insults and threats on social media. Abde had to explain his gesture.

The controversy led the footballer, born in Morocco and raised precisely in Elche, to explain publicly that he had taken part in an initiative “of a social nature in support of a population and its inhabitants” and that his gesture was not intended to make any political statement about Ceuta.

Abde also reaffirmed his Moroccan roots and rejected having to apologise for wearing the shirt.

A precedent that shows just how far the message “We are all caballas,” conceived as a show of solidarity, has ended up moving into much more delicate territory.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.