The injury kept the Monaco loanee out of the World Cup…
Amateur footballer and primary school teacher Soner Ertek has revealed that he received death threats after injuring Radamel Falcao before the World Cup, reports the Daily Mirror.
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The Colombian was injured by the part timer last season during Monaco’s cup match against Monts d’Or Azergues, and the resulting knee problem meant that he was ruled out of the world’s biggest tournament. This news did not go down very well in Columbia, where even newspapers branded the Ertek as ‘Evil’. Falcao and footballing legends Frank Leboeuf and Will Sagnol got involved to try and calm the situation down, but they were unable to completely stop the torrent of hatred.
“He went down injured and was carried off, but no one knew what was wrong. During half-time a team-mate said, ‘Did you hear about Falcao? They are saying it is serious’,” the amateur explained.
“After the game, which we lost 3-0, TV interviewers wanted to speak to me and I understood it wasn’t because of my defensive skills. When I got home to my wife Selvinaz, the phone had already been ringing. It rang and shook all the time,” he added.
“Phonecalls, e-mails and, above all, Facebook notifications kept coming thick and fast. Some unknown guys made requests to follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Guys with Spanish names. It was my story everywhere that whole week.”
He went on to say, “People were saying, ‘If I was him, I would commit suicide’. Another said, ‘If the Colombian army want to be trusted again, let them take care of Soner Ertek’. It was very heavy stuff. One Colombian newspaper wrote, ‘He will be 29 soon with nothing to celebrate. He is Evil, represented with a capital E’.”
The 28-year-old is now on loan at Manchester United, and is struggling to convince manager Louis van Gaal to pay £44 million in order to sign him permanently. However, before the serious knee injury he was revered as one of the best players in Europe, and was being chased by some of the biggest teams on the continent.