Bacary Sagna | In my own words

Everything would have been so different if none of this had happened, so much easier.

I would have played free of mind, I could have done better, I could have been more decisive. Whether that was with Arsenal or the national team, I know I could have done better.

It started in February 2008. February 13, exactly one week before the second leg of our Champions League last-16 game against AC Milan, I lost my brother in a way I didn’t expect.

Fine one day and then the next, gone. Just 28. His funeral was in Senegal but I didn’t go, I came back to Arsenal to play in the second leg.

Bac competes with Kaka at Emirates Stadium

Back home because everyone was very upset, so my father told me to come back…