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“Oh Holy Cow” – Mapou Sees Inside St.James’ Park

Newcastle United’s raids on the French league are understandably making waves over the other side of the Channel.

The new signings are featuring regularly on French sports media and on beinSport there was a special feature on Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, both an interview and footage of him training and at St.James’ Park.

(At 20.10 William Gallas starts talking and at 28+ he talks about Mapou, 28.15 there is training footage and 28.50 the feature/interview at SJP – watch the video here)

Thanks to Pierre for kindly providing the translation.

William Gallas was asked whether Mapou moving to Newcastle was a good choice for the player?

“Yes it is a good choice, he needed to leave the French championship to get himself known in Europe, coming to England and in particular Newcastle, will allow him to progress further”.

When Mapou gets inside St James’ Park his first words when he goes on the pitch and looks around are “Oh La Vache!!!!” a popular French expression of amazement literally meaning “Oh The Cow!!!!”, or ‘Oh Holy Cow’ or ‘Oh my God’!

The player is asked if he is seeing it for the first time and Mapou replies;

“No, I saw it last night but I am now imagining it with 50,000 supporters, we are going to do something here!”.

Mapou has been told by Pardew that he needs to hit the ground running and that he needs to play as soon as possible.

The words from his last owner, did they hurt him?

”Not really, I know him well and he has done a lot for me…”.

Mapou comes across as not bitter, level headed and knowing what to say and what not to say!

‘We understand that your coach was not really aware about you leaving until your last match, is this true?’

“Well I was not aware of what was relayed between the club and him but I was 99% sure of leaving when I knew Newcastle were interested. When everything was sorted I went to speak with my coach, I was the first one to tell him that I was leaving. You sense that he was disappointed about that”.

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