niceAnelka
Amy Lawrence
Sunglasses weather in St Albans. The roof of the sleek, silver convertible is down, and a friendly face waits for him to jump in and burn some rubber on the run into town. He waves casually, flashes a smile, and zooms off to enjoy a sunny afternoon at his leisure. Later that weekend he will be acclaimed by his awestruck public as he gets around to fetching a couple more awards before taking part in a televised match at the top of one of Europe’s top leagues. Life is not all bad for Nicolas Anelka.
Not that you would know it. He does a fine job concealing his private world from general consumption, so we are left with a collage of images and rumour and mischievously translated French. Make of this what you will. According to last week’s spate of bad press, he is the young snubber of the year, about par for the course for a boy whose demeanour screams surly, sullen, sour, a lad whose moans have been misinterpreted once too often for comfort.
There is a hint of Harry Enfield’s “teenager” about Anelka, a touch of nobody- understands-me brattishness. His expression brings to mind the old wives’ tale about a scowl staying on your face if the wind blew. Maybe a raw gust swept through his street in the Parisian suburb of Trappes as he left for school dreading a maths test.
His lamentable public image is a pity because it gives his detractors sticks with which to beat him when they should be marvelling at an outstanding footballer blossoming before their very eyes. That, together with a hint of jingoism, explains why we are not as comfortable watching the evolution of Anelka as Michael Owen.
His manager, Arsne Wenger, believes the critics are wrong on two counts, because he’s misunderstood and, anyway, he’s a footballer not a tap dancer. “He is not the type of person the media represent, at all. 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.”
Tony Adams’s dry remark upon collecting Anelka’s Young Player of the Year trophy – that he was drunk when it was his turn several years before – was doubly poignant. The reformed Adams was once the stereotypical English footballing prodigy. Anelka doesn’t conform to that, and why should he?
“Basically the first thing for a player is to perform well on the pitch and to give joy and happiness from what you do on the field,” adds Wenger. “Sometimes I like it when people don’t come out and speak too much. Look at Andy Cole. What he does is great: he doesn’t speak when he is dropped and when he plays he plays well. Play – that’s the best thing you can do.”
Natural shyness fused with supreme professional confidence is a curious mix. Anelka has always been that way. Andre Merelle, who coached him in his early teens at the Institute National de Formation, remembers him as something of a rebel. He didn’t apply himself to work because he felt his ability alone was enough.
During his first two years, he never listened, always appearing detached and aloof. Boys from all over France – Juventus’s Thierry Henry and Newcastle’s Louis Saha were in his year – boarded there in the picturesque chateau at Clairfontaine, but most weeks Anelka would go home to the more urban surroundings of Trappes on the other side of Paris.
Merelle persevered, chipping away at his rebellious resistance and ordering punishments such as half an hour lapping the pitch. Anelka ran many laps. In his final year, the message got through, and upon leaving the institute, young Nicolas wrote him a thank-you letter.
Joining Paris Saint-Germain at 16, he was immediately thrust into daily training with Patrice Loko and Dely Valdes, the international-class first-team strikers, who were no better than him. When they signed another forward, Cyril Pouget, who was considerably worse, Anelka knew it was time to move on.
>From day one at Arsenal, he viewed Dennis Bergkamp, Marc Overmars and Ian Wright as equals. This explains the accusations of arrogance but, in fairness, every time he takes another career step he is never out of place.
One year at Highbury and he is a double winner, marking the FA Cup final with a strike to cherish. A handful of caps for France and he is a national hero, described as the 11th piece of the jigsaw, the attacker the world champions had been searching for. At the turn of 1999 he was pivotal in an impressive Euro 2000 win in Russia, scoring one and making the other, before producing the most stunning example of forward play this season in France’s historic win at Wembley and completing a memorable hat-trick in everybody’s eyes bar the referee’s.
Zinedine Zidane sang of an instant connection with Anelka. “I feel a spirit building with Nicolas; when I pass the ball forward I know he will be there.”
The sign of a truly great player is the ability to perform at any level. So far so good. When the time comes to take the next step, he will not have an ounce of fear, and he fancies Spain one day. Such a move will not, though, bring perfect happiness. The freedom to hang out with friends in Trappes, go to the cinema or out for pizza (and that’s about it) will never be recreated in Madrid or Barcelona. There is football and there is life. He knows the best of both worlds cannot co-exist.
At the moment his priority is football and he is doing fine in north London under Wenger’s protective wing. “I worry because I look at what has happened to Ronaldo’s career,” says the Highbury professor. At the same time he is surer than ever that his brilliant discovery will be up there with the true greats before long. He reasons that explosive players rarely have great touch, and vice versa. Anelka has both. “Although some see it as arrogance; he has that certain something that makes him believe he is a player. He is very strong.”
His reaction to being “rested” while Arsenal trounced Wimbledon a couple of weeks ago – and he took it as a slight when people expressed astonishment that the team could score so freely without him – was to produce his most complete performance for the club in that bewitching 6-1 exhibition at Middlesbrough.
That afternoon the boy Wenger spirited to England in controversial circumstances came of age. The raw 17-year-old had only a silken touch. The individualist who wanted to take on the world was an integral team man. The silent loner who never got the joke when team-mates talked in an Inspector Clouseau accent smiled broadly when Nwanke Kanu’s staggering back-heel came off. When the mask is off he looks like a different person, sparkling, warm. Maybe he should try it more often.