12 best excerpts from Diego Costa's biography 'The Art of War'
Diego Costa is not what you call ‘an ideal role model.’ His goalscoring exploits have often been overshadowed by his trysts with fellow players on the field. Much like Chelsea, he is not ‘beauty to the eye’ stuff, but if there’s one thing about the pair, its that they know how to get the work done.He’s been hitting the headlines off the field as well. Costa decided to switch his nationality from Brazil, where he was born, and opted to play instead for Spain which didn’t go down well with the Selecao supporters. He hasn’t fared much better with the Spanish fans either having more than once pulled out of the national squad in spite of playing through the pain for his club side.He is known for his aggressive style of play, often drawing reactions from the opposition players. But he has vowed to stick to his style of play and enjoy his little battles. So what better title for his biography than ‘The Art of War.’As the poster boy of Adidas’ If it’s not blue, it will be blue’ ad campaign, we have been able to witness the funny side of Diego ‘half warrior, half prankster’ Costa. The 25-year-old is hoping to build on that with the publication of his book, which opens up on the player’s less talked about incidents in his life so far.Here is a compilation of the best stories from the book.
#1 He accidentally killed his pet dog
A grim story to start off first. Costa looking back on his early days playing on the street once said, “I insulted everyone, I had no respect for the opposition, I thought I had to kill them.”
He didn’t do that thankfully but he unintentionally killed a dog, that too his own pet.
Costa was playing for Atletico Madrid at the time and he accidentally ran over his Yorkshire Terrier while parking his car. His teammate at the time Paulo Assuncao described the incident.
“Diego brought his Yorkshire Terrier to Madrid but one day when he was parking and didn’t realise the dog was behind the car, he reversed over it. He was devastated, totally depressed for a month.”
Assuncao revealed that Costa broke down when he enquired on the matter. He said: “I can’t believe it. I killed my dog. He came out of the house to greet me and I didn’t see him and I ran over him.”
So now you know – even the toughest of boys do cry.
To those who want to know how Costa’s pet was like, here’s Marco Navas explaining about his mate’s pet. He used to hang out with Costa often during their time in Madrid as he too had a dog.
“Although mine was bigger, he was really scared of Diego's dog. That thing might have been small, but my god, it was fierce – not unlike its owner.”