Viktor Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s mask celebration is one of the most recognisable moments in the sport, and it crossed into basketball this week when Giannis Antetokounmpo performed the same gesture on Tuesday night. It was not a first for Antetokounmpo; he previously reproduced the mask celebration in Nov. 2024 while Gy\u00f6keres was scoring freely for Sporting CP.<\/p>\n
Gy\u00f6keres has since moved to the Premier League and now leads the line for Mikel Arteta\u2019s side. Through 14 appearances for Arsenal, Gy\u00f6keres has found the back of the net five times as he continues to adapt to life in England.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo has long been open about his interest in soccer. He has admitted many times he is a soccer fan and that Arsenal were the team he supported growing up. In 2020 he reflected on his childhood and the sport\u2019s place in his family: \u201cI used to watch a lot of football [soccer] growing up, my dad was a football player,\u201d Antetokounmpo said in 2020. \u201cFootball was our life. My favorite team used to be Arsenal and my favorite player used to be Thierry Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two-time NBA MVP has said soccer was the first sport he loved and that, at one point, he dreamed of being a professional on the pitch rather than on the court. When Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to their first NBA title in nearly 50 years in 2021, his childhood idol made sure to congratulate him.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo has also acknowledged a leaning toward Paris Saint-Germain during the period Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 was with the club, but his longstanding association with Arsenal remains clear. \u201cBut still, deep down I\u2019m an Arsenal fan,\u201d Antetokounmpo said.<\/p>\n
The recurrence of Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s signature celebration in a different sport underlines how moments from the Premier League can resonate well beyond football, and how a player\u2019s trademark can find new life on another stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Giannis replicated Viktor Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s mask celebration; he first did it in Nov. 2024 and again. extra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172,1125],"tags":[1081],"class_list":["post-4157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","category-strikers","tag-adaptation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}