Alejandro Villanueva Criticized

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The dispute that has arisen between Donald Trump and the NFL players who have participated in the Take A Knee initiative seems to have gone out of proportion, eclipsing other priority issues on the president's agenda such as the situation in Puerto Rico, threats from North Korea or the proposal to replace Obamacare.

Started in August 2016 by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, as a protest against racial discrimination in the country, the peaceful campaign involves NFL players kneeling while listening to the national anthem, in protocol events before the start of each game.

The initiative did not fall in favor of Trump, who last Friday assured that the directors of the NFL teams should fire the "sons of bitches …" who participate in the protest. The president's words touched the fibers of many players and last weekend dozens of athletes joined the campaign as a sign of rejection of what the president said.

In fact, some teams made the decision not to even go out on the field of play during the protocol acts. This was the case of the Pittsburgh Steelers, where Alejandro Villanueva plays, and who was the only member of the team who came out onto the field to listen to the anthem.

It seems that the player decided to ignore a decision made by the entire team and left a memorable image for the memory, when he went out alone on the court, while the other members of the team waited in the tunnel.

As reported by People magazine on its online site, Villanueva would have been one of the key pieces in the team's decision to stay inside the tunnel during the hymn, therefore, his sudden action to go out to the field left his teammates dismayed, raised some criticism among his colleagues and his followers.

Alejandro Villanueva.

"I thought we all had the same intention, but obviously it was not," said James Harrison, Villanueva's teammate, adding to the surprise words of coach Mike Tomlin, who before the start of the game had announced that his managers would not go out on the field.

Alejandro, of Spanish parents and born in Mississippi, recently signed a millionaire contract with the Steelers, a team he came to in 2014. But before being a professional footballer, the 29-year-old NFL star was a member of the United States Army. United and was serving in Afghanistan.