Nicolas Anelka

[pWneR 230]

What's up with the Indian league? Del Piero went there, Ljungberg and Pires got out of retirement to go there. Is money there that good?

[Blue Armour 4,165]

What's up with the Indian league? Del Piero went there, Ljungberg and Pires got out of retirement to go there. Is money there that good?

Haha..don't think there's any doubt about that. But all the same, am happy for it...hope it gives football more exposure than it already has in India, and consequently improve Indian football itself.

[the wes 7,212]

Anelka returns to Mumbai as player-manager

http://thehimalayantimes.com/sports/anelka-returns-to-mumbai-as-player-manager/

[Blusan Alamb 295]

 

Luiz Felipe Scolari says Nicolas Anelka got him the sack at Chelsea by refusing to play on the wing

Former Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari says Nicolas Anelka got him the sack at Stamford Bridge - by refusing to play on the wing.

The Brazilian was axed by the Blues in February 2009 after less than a year in charge with reports suggesting his struggles to speak fluent English were to blame.

But Scolari has poured water on those claims - instead laying the blame at the door of former Arsenal and Liverpool striker Anelka.

When Didier Drogba returned from injury, Scolari says he met with his forwards and explained that one of them would have to play from the wing, and that's when things started to go wrong.

"I had Anelka playing up front. Nine. Top scorer in the league," Scolari told ESPN Brazil.

"The players return, I make a meeting, and in the meeting I say: 'Look, now that the players have all returned, Drogba is back after two months, we will try to work a situation involving the two attackers playing one by the side, one in the centre, changing positions'.

"Then Anelka, the league’s top scorer, said: 'I do not play on the wing'. Well, that’s when I said: 'You don’t play on the wing, one’s going to be on the left, it’s over, I’m not going to stay here arguing with you guys'.

"I left there and our team was third in the league, three or four points behind top. Qualified for the round-of-16 or quarter-finals of the Champions League. But there was this bad environment, that situation.

 

"I don’t know if I had continued, what would have happened. But it was interrupted. There, I got upset.

"They’ll say: 'Oh, because you didn’t speak English perfectly'. Of course, I did not. I didn’t speak English perfectly. But I understood perfectly.

"We understood, with my English, and the English that was spoken there, we understood perfectly."

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/luiz-felipe-scolari-says-nicolas-11735843

[Vesper 27,317]

Rebooted: Nicolas Anelka, the electric striker who wanted ‘to go too fast’

https://theathletic.com/1769146/2020/04/28/nicolas-anelka-arsenal-wenger-real-madrid/

When Arsenal’s Nicolas Anelka was awarded the PFA Young Player of the Year award in 1999, he declined to attend the ceremony.

In the absence of the nation’s finest young footballer, it was left to club captain Tony Adams to collect the trophy. “I didn’t attend the ceremony because I didn’t want to do the English press the honour of going,” Anelka later admitted to French magazine VSD.

Anelka’s absence was widely taken as confirmation of his surly insouciance. He was the boy with the world at his feet and a chip on his shoulder. He was “Le Sulk”.

There was something to that, certainly. Anelka didn’t have the showmanship of his predecessor Ian Wright, nor the oozing charisma of his successor Thierry Henry. His football was red hot, yet it wasn’t particularly easy to warm to him.

Yet the caricature masks some of his complexities. Anelka is an introvert whose career has been littered with confrontation. An astonishing sprinter who ultimately moved too fast. A young man seemingly sure of his own mind, who has been left with regret.

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Anelka was born in the Parisian suburb of Le Chesnay to Martinique-born parents Marguerite and Jean-Phillipe. His two brothers, Claude and Didier, were almost a decade older, and their seniority would make them major influences in his life — and his short-lived Arsenal career.

Spotted playing for local team FC Trappes, he was recruited to the esteemed Clairefontaine academy. Anelka was part of the class of 1995, along with future French internationals Louis Saha and Philippe Christanval. Legendary French coach Andre Merelle oversaw his development in those first few formative years and identified the withdrawn personality that characterised the early part of Anelka’s career. “I saw him arrive at INF Clairefontaine at 13 years old,” Merelle told Le Parisien. “He was very good technically and already so lively and fast. It was a pleasure to see him play and he was above everyone, even if he was quite withdrawn, which made contact very difficult. But once he had a ball, he was happiest there. The pitch is his world.”

Speak to anyone who has worked with Anelka and that theme will reoccur. For him, the football field seemed to offer respite. For all the controversy that would follow him, there was never any debate over his ability.

Anelka’s potential saw him snapped up by Paris Saint-Germain and he would turn out for their youth team at the weekends while from Monday to Friday, he continued his footballing education at Clairefontaine.

Contrary to the popular myth, Arsenal didn’t pluck Anelka from total obscurity: he had a burgeoning reputation in France. By February 1996, he had already made his debut for the PSG first team, playing against AS Monaco at just 16 years old — at the time, it made him the second-youngest player in the top division’s history. At the start of the 1996-97 season, he scored his first Ligue 1 goal against RC Lens. Anelka was fast making a name for himself.

He was, however, impatient. PSG had a squad packed with attacking talent such as Rai, Julio Dely Valdes and Patrice Loko — and Anelka didn’t want to wait around. He had grown up a PSG fan but that did not weigh much against the ambition of his advisors. Consensus dictates he left Arsenal too soon but there are those who would say the same for PSG.

“Sometimes I think of Nicolas in his early days,” recalls Luis Fernandez, the coach who handed him his professional debut as a teenager. “He’s someone who wanted to play, to succeed. He had enormous potential. When he started out, a certain entourage of bad advisors drew him to the dark side… Nicolas badly negotiated the different turns of his career, at least the first. He wanted to go too fast.”

And he wanted to go to Arsenal. By now, Anelka’s brothers were representing his interests and when he failed to return to PSG training after the winter break, it set the wheels in motion for an acrimonious departure. PSG were offered little protection by the rules governing youth players at the time: they could either accept compensation in the region of half a million pounds or hold on to him until the end of the season and lose him for nothing. They decided to recoup what little money they could and in February 1997, Anelka arrived in north London.

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Lee Dixon remembers Anelka’s first training session at London Colney. “Just in the warm-up, before getting the balls out, he looked an absolute pure athlete,” Dixon tells The Athletic. “I remember I was running flat out and he was just skimming across the grass, barely touching it.”

“We had a practice match, 11-v-11, in one of his first sessions. The team was mixed up and he was on our side. He made it so easy… We realised we could basically hit the ball over the top and however bad a pass you hit, he’d get on the end of it. He was just instantly a brilliant finisher. Thierry (Henry) and Dennis (Bergkamp) struggled to hit the net to begin with but Anelka was an absolute natural.”

This was a player who did almost all of his talking on the field. “He was so quiet,” says Dixon. “He didn’t speak. He probably said about three words in the whole time he was there.”

“Around this time, Tony Adams went through a period of coming into the dressing room and making sure he said hello to everybody. He’d walk round and as you’re sat there putting your underpants and your socks on, wanting some privacy, big captain would come round and say, ‘Morning Dicko’, then stand in front of you and shake your hand. Then he’d move on — ‘Morning Bouldy’ — and so on.

“Every time he got round to Nicolas, he was so so shy. He’d just stick his hand out and barely even look at him. It was probably three weeks until he murmured something back to Tony, out of embarrassment., if anything. It was just ‘Morning Nicolas’, ‘Morning Nicolas’, ‘Morning Nicolas’, with nothing coming back!”

Arsenal had a growing community of French players but Anelka shied away from them too. He was not a social creature, spending his time outside football with his brothers in the four-bedroom Edgware home they’d purchased on arrival. “He was just really shy and introverted,” says Dixon. “But he was ballsy when he was out on the pitch. That was his stage, that was where he felt comfortable.”

Arsene Wenger had given Anelka the No 11 shirt vacated by Glenn Helder — seemingly an indicator he envisaged him being immediately involved in the first-team squad. At first, however, he played less than he managed in Paris. Between his arrival in February and the end of the season, he made just four Premier League appearances.

The following season saw a change in fortunes — and shirt numbers. Anelka, now wearing nine, ousted Ian Wright as the first-team’s starting centre-forward over the course of the campaign. His breakout season culminated in setting the seal on Arsenal’s double with a goal against Newcastle in the FA Cup Final. Anelka was barely 19.

With his first professional silverware under his belt, and his place in the team seemingly secure, the summer of 1998 should have been the start of something beautiful for Anelka and Arsenal. Instead, it was the beginning of the end.

 

If Anelka is to be believed, it all started to go wrong with a supporter poll. “When I started my last year, there was a survey because I took Ian Wright’s place,” Anelka later explained in a French DVD commemorating his career. “I thought the fans really wanted me and were happy with my performance but when I saw the results in the newspapers and on TV (Wright won), it hurt me a lot. I felt like I did all that stuff for nothing.”

Anelka’s sensitivity was surely misplaced. Losing a poll to Arsenal’s record goalscorer at the time is no slight. Arsenal’s fans undoubtedly felt a debt of loyalty to Wright for his years of his service. What’s more, his bubbly personality made him more personable — more loveable, perhaps — than the withdrawn Anelka. It was not a comment on his ability. Nevertheless, it hurt him.

“I thought, ‘So that’s how it is. That’s how you thank me?’,” he continues. “So now look what’s going to happen: I’m going to play, score my goals and just when you chant my name, I will leave. This is exactly what I did because I was furious with them. I left Arsenal to punish the fans.”

Sure enough, in 1998-99, Anelka was in blistering form. He arguably peaked in the month of February, when he was not only named Carling Premiership Player of the Month after scoring in every league game but also netted twice for France in their first-ever win over England at Wembley Stadium. His coruscating form saw him finish the season as Arsenal’s top goalscorer with 17 goals.

Unfortunately, in that same February, Anelka’s relationship with English football soured further. Anelka granted an exclusive tabloid interview which ran with the headline: “The gloomy Gooner in Cor Blimey land”. In the piece, Anelka had admitted to being “bored in London” — “I don’t know anybody in London and I don’t want to. I don’t think I’ll see my contract through.”

Anelka disputed his portrayal as a sulk — hence the antipathy towards the press that led to him swerving the PFA ceremony. To his mind, he was a young man struggling with adaptation to a new country.

Wenger was quick to defend him. “He is not the type of person the media represent, at all,” the Arsenal manager said. “He is not an arrogant guy. He is reliable and shy, much more sensitive than people think. I sometimes put myself in his position and he is amazing for a 20-year-old. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, he is at training every day, he has played nearly every game this season. That deserves a lot of respect.”

Anelka’s nomadic career might suggest there is an inherent restlessness to his character. Having walked out on the club of his heart, PSG, perhaps he would never really be happy anywhere.

Arsenal felt the advice of his brothers was a more significant catalyst in Anelka’s unhappiness than the British press. Claude and Didier didn’t wait for Arsenal’s permission before beginning negotiations with half a dozen clubs on the continent. Having engineered the move from Paris to London, they knew what it took to force a club’s hand.

At the end of the 1998-99 season, the two brothers informed Wenger and David Dein that Nicolas was determined to leave the club — this despite signing a four-year deal just months prior. Anelka was whisked away to a hotel in Martinique, from where his brothers conducted the negotiations via mobile phone. Anelka himself could not be reached, despite Wenger’s attempts.

“He has been isolated,” Wenger said. “We have lost contact with him. I understand that he wants to leave but for him to lose contact is more difficult for me to understand. I don’t believe he was so keen to leave. He’s not a bad boy. He’s not someone who is unwell in London. That’s completely untrue. He has been pushed to say that.”

Wenger was particularly disappointed by the player’s refusal to inform him of his wishes to his face. At 20, Anelka was already a starting player for a Champions League club. As far as Wenger could see it, there was only one reason he could be so determined to leave: “the money”.

Arsenal fielded offers from Juventus before entering advanced negotiations with Lazio. At one point, they appeared on the brink of a most unusual transfer deal. At the time, fees were spiralling so dramatically that Arsenal were concerned Lazio might be attempting to buy Anelka only to sell him on at an inflated price shortly afterwards. In 1998, Lazio had bought Christian Vieri for £10 million only to sell him to Inter Milan for £30 million 12 months later.

Consequently, Lazio proposed an £18 million fee, with a further £4 million due to Arsenal if they sold him any time in the next four years. While some sections of the Arsenal board were minded to accept, Dein believed Arsenal should hold out for the money upfront.

In the end, the vice-chairman was proved right. A few weeks later, shortly after the family doctor announced Anelka could not report for training as he was “suffering from stress”, Real Madrid completed the £23.5 million signing of the player. Arsenal were reluctant sellers but the deal has since been heralded as one of the most important of Wenger’s tenure: it enabled the club to modernise their training ground and sign Thierry Henry — the man who would become the greatest goalscorer in their history.

The immediate future was less kind to Anelka, who was moved on from Madrid after one difficult season. Vincente del Bosque later claimed Anelka refused to train after accusing his team-mates of not celebrating his goals enough. The anecdote adds to the portrait of a complicated young man who expected loyalty and love when he didn’t always offer it — and those closest to him, those he trusted most, did not always have his best interests at heart.

His place in Arsenal’s history remains a curious one, sandwiched between the brilliance of Wright and Henry. Anelka arguably matches them for pure talent but not for longevity — not for legendary status. In recent years, he has admitted regret over both his decision to leave and his conduct, particularly walking away from the coach who understood him best. At Arsenal it’s said that a curse hangs over the No 9 shirt, one that’s lingered ever since Anelka vacated it.

Had he chosen to remain in north London — had he somehow ignored the irritation of the media and the agitation of his brothers — perhaps this story might have ended differently. Perhaps it would be Anelka, rather than his replacement Henry, cast in bronze on the stadium’s concourse. No one doubts he had the talent. If only he’d taken his time.

[Jase 43,479]

 

[MoroccanBlue 5,199]

2008 leaves a bad taste. Still all things considered, he should be valued more here. 

[SUNZ 155]

 

I loved this guy.

[OneMoSalah 8,614]

On 08/06/2020 at 5:16 PM, Jason said:

 

Seen something about this today. Out August 5th, certainly will be an interesting watch.

Wenger and Drogba both involved with it. Few others too, Pogba, Pires and Evra IIRC.
 

Should be good, bound to be a few stories about the 2010 WC which will be interesting

[Nero 1,794]

 

[Vesper 27,317]

On this day in 2010: Nicolas Anelka hit by 18-match ban after World Cup row

https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/chelsea/on-this-day/feature/on-this-day-in-2010-nicolas-anelka-hit-by-18-match-ban-after-world-cup-row_410575.html

Nicolas Anelka's international career was effectively ended after he was given an 18-match suspension by the French Football Federation for his World Cup altercation with coach Raymond Domenech.

The striker, with Chelsea at the time, was disciplined for his part in the internal strife which contributed to Les Bleus' early exit from the World Cup in South Africa.

Their campaign descended into farce after the squad went on strike when Anelka was sent home from South Africa after a row with Domenech.

France finished bottom of their group, after scoring just one goal and earning one point in three matches, and the fall-out led to new coach Laurent Blanc suspending all 23 members of the World Cup squad from his selection for a friendly against Norway, while the FFF also withheld bonuses owed to the players.

Patrice Evra was handed a five-match ban, Franck Ribery a three-match suspension and Jeremy Toulalan a one-game ban for their parts in the revolt.

However, Eric Abidal and the remaining members of the 23-man squad escaped further punishment, having already missed the first match of Blanc's reign as coach.

[Vesper 27,317]

Nicolas Anelka's Golden Boot Winning Season | All 19 Goals | Premier League 2008/09

Take a look back at Nicolas Anelka's prolific 2008/09 season where he secured the Golden Boot, beating Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo by 1 goal.