Aston Villa’s star striker Christian Benteke has spoken of his faith in Christ – and the reason for his particular celebration after each goal. Matthew Murray reports
Aston Villa ace Christian Benteke has explained the divine inspiration for his heaven-sent goal celebration. Benteke, who bagged 28 goals in all competitions last season and is Villa’s key man this term, put an end to ongoing transfer speculation by signing a four-year deal at Villa Park in the summer.
And now the Belgian international has revealed why he celebrates each of his goals by pointing towards the sky.
“I do the celebration because I believe in God,” he says. “So when I score the first thing I have to do is say thank you to him. He has given me the power to score. I am a very religious person. I pray before the game and I pray after the game. This is my education from my family.
“I thank him for the good things that he has given me. Before each match I pray to him to make sure that nothing bad happens to all 22 players on the pitch. That is important.
“I ask for him to look after everyone. Before we are footballers, we are men, we are people together.
“We have a good job. Other people wake up at 6am in the morning and go back home at 6pm in the evening. They work really hard. We have to enjoy what we do and give thanks for that.
“I see fans doing the celebrations on Twitter. They send me messages showing themselves in photos. It makes me laugh and makes me smile.
“I really like it. It’s good that everyone enjoys it. It’s really great.”
Benteke, 23, is happy to be wearing the No.20 shirt which brought him so much success during his first season. “When I came to Villa, I took the No.20 – and now I don’t want to change. Why would I?” he adds. ‘‘People may have thought No.9 or No.10 but not for me, I am really happy with No.20.
“If I score, I am very happy but I am really happy if I set up others to score. It doesn’t matter really as long as the team scores. I am the striker and I would be lying if I said I don’t care about scoring but if someone else scores and we win, I am very, very happy.’’
Benteke has set himself a target of being Villa’s first man in three decades to score 20 goals in a Premier League season. He came close last year, bagging 19.
He adds, “I expect myself to do better than last season. When you score goals you get some really good confidence levels. They rise. As a striker, a lot of people are waiting for me. The fans are waiting for me. So the pressure is going to be bigger around me but this is football and I accept that.
“I can take that. I am young. I am confident. This is the life I have chosen, so I am happy to take this on. Last season was a very good first season for me. I was happy with it but now it’s behind me. I have to look forward and try to do the same or even better.”
Benteke is part of the glittering new generation of Belgian footballers who sit top of World Cup 2014 qualifying Group A and, by the time that tournament comes around, may well even be one of the favourites among Europe’s representatives to win it.
But he was born in Kinshasa in 1990, the son of a military man, Jean-Pierre, who decided that the Mobutu regime was too dangerous for his wife and son. The family moved to join an uncle in Liège, in Belgium, the DR Congo’s former colonial power, and Benteke himself has never been back to the country of his birth.
“It wasn’t especially because there was a war on where we were living, but because my father was in the military and he anticipated that the fighting would reach us,” he explains. “He didn’t want to take risks with his family.”
Speaking about the quality of young Belgium footballers, Benteke adds, “I think it is because there are a lot more street footballers coming through with a lot of skill learnt on the street.
“But it’s not skill that has been taught to them. They already have innate quality. I think now they have the chance to come through. Everybody is progressing at the same speed in this generation.
“I started in the street, playing with my mates in the evenings. It was more fun that way. Also in Liège they have pitches set up all over the city, some are shale and some are synthetic but there were a lot of places for us to play whenever we wanted.”