Diego Costa has been labelled a “fraud” by Paris Saint-Germain’s official Twitter feed on the eve of the second leg of Chelsea’s Champions League knockout tie with the French league’s runaway leaders.
The club’s official account, jokingly if provocatively, tweeted a Vine just before 3pm on Tuesday under the message: “Have you found the hero? Okay, now find the imposter!”
Vous avez trouvé le héros ? Ok, maintenant trouvez l'imposteur ! https://t.co/43863goxe1
— PSG Officiel (@PSG_inside) March 8, 2016
The supporting video flicked through various masked movie characters and superheroes, from Batman to Zorro, Spider-Man to Darth Vader, Iron Man to Kylo Ren and included Costa, sporting his own facial protection, in the number. Written across the bottom of the screen was the provocative strapline: “Spot the fraud”.
Costa broke his nose in an inadvertent training ground clash with the young defender, Fikayo Tomori, last month and flew to Milan to have a special mask fitted.
The forward missed Chelsea’s draw with Stoke City in the Premier League on Saturday with a minor tendon problem but trained at Cobham with his team-mates on Tuesday morning and will start the second leg of the clubs’ Champions League tie, in which the Premier League side trail 2-1.
The Spain international, who was linked with a summer move to PSG this week, has scored 10 goals in 14 appearances under Guus Hiddink but has found life tougher in European competition since moving from Atlético Madrid in the summer of 2014.
The 27-year-old has mustered a solitary goal in 14 Champions League appearances for Chelsea, his only reward coming in September’s trouncing of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the group stage, having previously proved prolific for Atlético in the competition to help the Spanish club to the final two years ago. He managed eight in nine appearances en route to the 2014 final, from which he departed early with a hamstring problem as Atlético lost 4-1 to Real Madrid in extra-time.
PSG had earlier tweeted another video montage, asking fans to “spot your real hero” with an image of Thiago Silva celebrating at Stamford Bridge in last year’s tie between the clubs in among the masked characters.
