Gary Lineker, 61, didn’t shy away from showing his emotions on-air as he wiped away tears during his powerful conversation with Ukrainian Manchester City star Oleksandr Zinchenko. Alex Scott, 37, has taken to Twitter to comment on the “emotional” interview that will air on Football Focus today.
Gary posted a tweet yesterday addressing the pair’s poignant chat amid Russia’s war with Zinchenko’s home country, in view of his 8.3 million followers.
He wrote: “Just spoke to Oleksandr Zinchenko for @BBCNews @BBCSport.
“The most emotional and heart-rending interview I’ve ever done.”
Alex responded to Gary as she reposted his tweet, along with the message: “Just watched the full interview which we will play on #footballfocus from 12pm BBC1.
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“It’s already a week, like I’m not counting, but even, I can drive the car from the training ground, or it doesn’t matter where, I can just cry from nothing, because it’s everything in my head. (sic)
“Imagine the place where you were born, where you were growing up, and there is just empty ground.”
He admitted that, if it wasn’t for his family, he too would be back in Ukraine fighting.
Oleksandr continued: “I know the people, the mentality of my people from my country. They prefer to die, and they will die. But they’re not going to give [up].”
During the interview, both Oleksandr and Gary wiped away their tears as they spoke about the horrid events.
Putin has insisted that the invasion of Russia is a security operation rather than a war or an invasion.
But that claim was angrily refuted by Oleksandr, who slammed the violence against his home nation as “unacceptable”.
He said: “I can show you one million pictures. I can show you one million videos.
“I can show you every city in my country which they have destroyed. And is this a security operation? It’s impossible.”