Search icon

Football

25th May 2017

Ander Herrera’s tribute to the victims of the Manchester attack truly shows the measure of the man

A genuine and classy statement

Darragh Culhane

Ander Herrera capped off a brilliant season in a Manchester United jersey last night.

He was the shining light for Jose Mourinho’s side this season, taking home the club’s Player of the Year award and also took home the man of the match award as Manchester United won the Europa League last night.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Spaniard before he had a stellar performance against Ajax. Living in Manchester, Monday’s attacks clearly had an effect on him.

As per the Manchester Evening News, Herrera opened up about how difficult it was for the players in the lead-up to the game.

“Yesterday morning we were devastated we were really, really sad because when you think about life and football you have no choice, it was difficult to train yesterday, really, really difficult for us.

“But the manager told us the only thing we could do was to win this for them and that’s what we’ve done. It’s just a football game, it’s just a trophy, but if we can help support them with this one per cent it’s enough for us.”

Herrera went on to dedicate the trophy to the victims of the attack on the Manchester Arena.

“We are very happy. European trophy, you don’t win it every day, but I want to dedicate the trophy to the victims. This is just football but what happened two days ago was horrible.

“We don’t want this in the world, we want a world of respect and I know we are just football players, but we have some audience so from here I just want to say to everyone to work together for a normal world.

“This happened in Manchester but everywhere has to be a united world to fight for peace and no more attacks and no more deaths please.” 

WATCH: Liverpool BOTTLED the title race 🤬 | Who will win the Premier League?