Benito Carbone admits Sheffield Wednesday ‘mistake’ – reveals apology to former boss

Carbone, now 51, became a popular figure at Wednesday during the Premier League years, scoring some memorable goals and giving fans plenty of moments to remember before his disappointing departure for Aston Villa.

The Italian maestro explained that he had his teammates to thank for the way that he settled in S6, adding that Des Walker’s ability to speak his mother tongue made a big difference.

“Milan and Sheffield are very different,” he said in an interview with The Guardian. “The first six months, the days were all the same. I wish to say thank you to Regi Blinker and Orlando Trustfull for helping me. They taught me the language, they gave me lifts, they took me out for dinner. Des Walker was great with me as captain. He spoke Italian. I’ll never forget what they did for me.

“When Paolo Di Canio arrived, I did the same for him. He said he was staying at a hotel and I said ‘No! You are alone? You come and sleep at my house.’ We were like brothers.”

The diminutive Italian also spoke about how he apologised to former boss, Danny Wilson, at Daniel Pudil’s charity game at Hillsborough earlier this year – admitting that he didn’t really want to leave Sheffield.

“David Pleat was like my father and he treated me like a son… But something was broken between me and Danny Wilson, the new manager. We had an argument. I never wanted to leave Sheffield. Even now, a generation later, you’d never expect the fans to recognise you.

“I went back for a charity game, over 20 years after I left, and the crowd went crazy for me. Danny Wilson was there. I picked him up and told him I wanted to say sorry. I was really young. My head was different. It was my mistake, definitely.”

Carbone played over 100 games in Wednesday colours, scoring 26 times, but signed for Villa in the season that saw the Owls relegated out of the top-flight – a level to which they haven’t returned since.

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