Brest’s Marco Bizot recounts how he helped an Eritrean refugee find his feet in the Netherlands | OneFootball

In speaking with So Foot, Brest’s Dutch international goalkeeper Marco Bizot (30) recounted how he helped an Eritrean refugee find his feet in the Netherlands while playing with previous club AZ Alkmaar.

“I was living in Amsterdam at that time. My wife worked with a refugee aid office, and I wanted to do something for the community, so I decided to become a “buddy”. I accompanied him to appointments to obtain papers, we visited the city. He was a few years older than me, he must have been 31 or 32 at the time. I showed him the city, I taught him about the country’s history. These are simple things that don’t cost you anything, you just need to be there.”

“We went to a swimming pool together, he had never seen one before, he’d never seen snow either. He told me about his life and why he came to the Netherlands. One day, I offered him a ticket for Ajax versus AZ Alkmaar, where I would be in goal for AZ. I’d never told him what I did for a living. It was his first match in a big stadium and we won. The next day he was just disappointed to see Ajax lose! I never told him it was partly because of me, he didn’t recognize me. When you’re at the stadium with such an atmosphere, you don’t imagine that someone you know could be on the pitch.”