Ex-Arsenal star unrecognisable on return with Atletico Madrid as fans left stunned

Arsenal fans thought they knew what to expect when Atletico Madrid came to the Emirates Stadium, but they would have been stunned to see one blast from the past

Arsenal fans were left stunned when they saw former Gunner, Nelson Vivas working as part of Atletico Madrid’s coaching team. Before the game, the north Londoners were expecting to see Diego Simeone’s side frustrate them in their Champions League clash.

While this happened in the first half, Mikel Arteta’s side put Atletico to the sword after the break with goals from Gabriel Magalhaes, Gabriel Martinelli and a brace from Viktor Gyokeres, all within the same 13-minute time period.

Few would have expected to see the north Londoners overcome the La Liga heavyweights so convincingly. While this was shocking for all Champions League football fans, many on social media were more stunned to see Vivas in the Atletico dugout.

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One Arsenal follower said: “If they didn’t say that’s Nelson Vivas we wouldn’t know.” Another simply commented: “Nelson Vivas. Blimey.”

However, other fans chose to stick the knife into the former Gunner, commenting on his grey hair and beard. One wrote: “Nelson Vivas looks about 8,000 years old,” while another added: “Nelson Vivas has not aged well.”

While many believe Vivas that looked like he has felt every one of his 56 years on the planet, one supporter was happy to see the Argentine back home in north London. They said: “It’s good to see Nelson Vivas, one of the very few Argentine Gunners!”

Vivas spent three years at Arsenal, between 1998 and 2001. He arrived from Swiss side FC Lugano and made 68 appearances under Arsene Wenger. He won the Community Shield and was unfortunate to miss out on not one but two Premier League title victories.

He joined Arsenal the summer after their 1997/98 double winning campaign, and left to join Inter Milan in the summer of 2001, just under a year before Arsenal won the double again. Vivas, who played a role in Argentina’s victory over England in the 1998 World Cup, was known as ‘the Kicking Machine’ amongst his Arsenal colleagues.

In a 2017 interview with FourFourTwo, he revealed that former team-mate and Gunners’ icon, Freddie Ljungberg, afforded him the unique nickname. He also confirmed Thierry Henry’s previous comment that the most dangerous thing a player could do in Arsenal training was try a one-two against him.

“That’s true,” he said to the magazine. “You can give the ‘one’ but you would hardly ever get the ‘two’. I remember Freddie Ljungberg baptised me ‘The Kicking Machine’. I have always done everything to try to win.

“I’d ask for cards yellow for the opposition players and, then, inside the dressing room they would all nag at me, because that is a lack of sportsmanship. Even during the training sessions, I got knocks and cuts. Don’t forget the group I trained with had Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Patrick Vieira…”

Fittingly, he was also an admirer of Tony Adams, another tough-tackling defender. He added: “Having a captain like Tony Adams was incredibly inspiring. After training, he would never walk across a pitch to save time and effort.

“Pitches were sacred, only used for playing football, never to just walk across. I’ve never experienced such feeling of perfection as I did while I was an Arsenal player.”

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