Barcelona’s Dani Alves responded in an admirably cool manner to a fans’ racist taunt during the team’s match against Villarreal this past Sunday, picking up a banana that was thrown on the floor by a supporter on the stands and eating it.
“Monkey” taunts have been notoriously prevalent in the footballing world, with it being an embarrassingly common occurrence for matches worldwide to take a sour turn due to racist chants and banners. Alves needn’t have responded so calmly, but the fact that he did shows a tremendous amount of restraint and composure. Watch the video of the incident below.
Alves addressed the incident after the game, which Barcelona won 3-2, saying: “I don’t know who threw the banana but I want to thank him. It gave me the energy to put two more crosses in for our goals.”
He also made a joke about it on Twitter, writing in Portuguese: “My father always told me, son, eating a banana prevents cramps LOL, how did you guess? Hahaha”
