Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta are close friends Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has extended his sympathies to close friend Pep Guardiola after the Manchester City boss lost his mother earlier this week. Manchester City confirmed on Monday that Dolors Sala, 82, had passed away after she contracted coronavirus. Spain is the second worst affected country in Europe behind Italy from the disease and Guardiola had already donated £900,000 to his homeland in the battle to combat the disease. Unfortunately his 82-year-old mother is one of 15,238 deaths in the country, which has nearly 1.5million cases worldwide.
Arteta has revealed that Guardiola was concerned about his parents before his mother’s death and says the City boss can get through the devastation with the help of his family.
‘I’ve been in touch with him… he was worried about his parents before because they’re getting older and they’d been trying to isolate,’ Arteta told Sky Sports. ‘It’s really sad news. I know the family really well.
I send my condolences to them and hopefully they can go through that all together. Dolors’ death has attracted heartfelt messages from across the football world. Many City players, including Gabriel Jesus, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva all sent public messages to Guardiola, while the rest of the squad have been in contact privately.
Rivals Manchester United showed there’s more important things in life than football when the club and the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Marcus Rashford extended their sympathies
