Keita and Pepe meet again

Former Barcelona player Seydou Keita, now playing for Roma, had an incident with Real Madrid´s central defender Pepe during their friendly pre-season game. Keita refused the customary handshake pre-match as tensions rose due to the last encounter the two had. According to Keita, Pepe called him a ‘mono’ (monkey) and Keita took great offence and believed it was not worthy of a top-level football player.

As we all know, Barcelona and Madrid do not share a great relationship, but the alleged racism was a step too far. Keita threw a bottle of water at the Madrid defender which caused a small tussle between the two teams before the match could begin. The match did however go ahead in Dallas leading to a 1-0 victory for the Italian team, Francesco Totti scoring the deciding goal in the 50th minute.