Nicolas Anelka will soon be playing professional soccer in China. This is surprising because Nicolas Anelka is still a talented, effective soccer player who would help all but about 10 teams in the world. This is not surprising because Nicolas Anelka is going to a place where they’ll pay him an exponent of a number it’d take me years to count to.
Many consider Anelka to be a mercenary. That’s what happens when you play for every English club, twice, and make a stop off in Turkey in between—all before you’re 30. In the sense that we can only try to characterize a soccer player’s career decisions with nothing more than a cursory knowledge of his decision-making process, it’s probably a fair label. But that’s not why his move to China isn’t surprising. Not-quite-past-their-prime players are moving to these money-rich, soccer-poor outposts more and more frequently with each passing transfer window. (Hi, Asamoah Gyan!) After all, this is a career—a fleetingly short one.
When I heard the news of Anelka’s move to Shanghai Shenua, I wasn’t surprised—but again, not because of his past moves. I wasn’t surprised because Nicolas Anelka has never seemed to me like someone who actually cared about the sport he plays for a living. And going to a low-level league that pays a ton of money fits that narrative I’ve built up in my head. Is this unfair? Yes. Do I care? Nope.
I’ve never liked Nicolas Anelka. I really don’t know much about him, personally … because I’m a 23-year-old living in Brooklyn, and he’s not. Nicolas Anelka could go play soccer on the moon, and I’d be happy. The further away he is from my life, the better.
Anelka has scored a lot of goals in his career, and he’s played for a lot of great clubs. In many ways, he’s had a very successful career, but he is the last player I’d ever want to have to root for.
He plays the game with the emotion of a once-petulant dead robot. There are some guys—namely, Mario Balotelli—who make it a point to show no emotion, turning that into a kind of emotionless emotion. For Anelka, though, the lack of emotion is exactly that: a lack of emotion. Is he really dead inside, wandering the field with nothing more than a desire for the clock to stop running? I have no idea, but that won’t stop me from believing it.
In a general sense, we can divide every soccer player ever into two categories: those who have to try really hard to succeed, and those who don’t. We love the first group because we see ourselves in them. Somehow, Lionel Messi falls into this group. (And that’s why we all love him. Yes, you love him, too.) For the second group, we’re amazed at how easily they pull off supposedly impossible things. Xabi Alonso does such things routinely.
Anelka fits into this second group. He glides around the field, cuts past defenders easily, and strikes the ball harder than his approach should ever allow. But that effortlessness disappears when an opponent closes him down. He’ll run at a defender and the ball will pop out to a teammate at the last second. When Carlo Ancelloti tried playing Anelka as the playmaker in a four-man midfield, he had to make quick decisions and play without much space, and it was hard to watch. The moments where he struggled became the norm.
Watching Anelka at full stride, cutting in from the sideline—that’s something I can appreciate, because it’s sort of breathtaking, but when it comes to anything more than that, his game is frustrating, an internal stumbling that’s just hard to look at, whether or not it actually succeeds. It’s effortlessness held for a second too long that makes you scream at your television.
Nicolas Anelka has never brought joy to my life. (And yes, the “LeSulk”-ness and his hijinks in South Africa don’t help.) For all I know, outside of soccer, he’s just a really great dude who’d want to be my best friend in some alternate universe. Maybe he really does care about the game, too.
But I don’t think that actually matters. I know Anelka as a soccer player, not as a brother, son, father, or whatever else he does when he’s not pissing me off. The personality I create for him—and we all do this when we watch sports—is realer, to me, than whatever his real personality is.
Good riddance, my nemesis.
Ryan O’Hanlon is the sports and managing editor for the Good Men Project. He used to go to college and play soccer. He’s still trying to get over it.
Read More: China, Nicolas Anelka
by Ryan O'Hanlon · December 16, 2011
This is how I feel about Juan Roman Riquelme…except i so wanted to like him…
I feel exactly the same way. I got worried when a few months ago talk arose of him joining Milan. Then I’d have had to watch him every week.
YES! Anelka’s wandering takes him far enough off my radar. And I’m overjoyed for both him and me.
He brought immense joy to my life, alright. When he struck that meek penalty in Moscow!
And then there’s the remarkably curious case of Carlos Tevez. Good Lord he tries and tries, yet I still hate him, the passionate mercenary he is.
@El Vite
I can see why you feel that way about Riquelme, because he plays as if he doesn’t care about what is going on around him, but everything else about him screams of an almost ridiculous fanaticism towards Boca Juniors, at least. For one, two seasons ago he ended up being fit to play less than a third of Boca’s games due to injury, so he paid his entire salary for that season back to the club.
His style makes it seem as if he doesn’t care or isn’t trying because he plays at a running pace that is much much slower than everyone else in the modern game. It doesn’t stop him from cutting through defenses with his Xavi-esque passes because although he runs slowly, his thinking is always quicker than his opponents. And when defenders do try to close him down, he simply turns around, brings the ball to a complete halt, and holds off one, two, sometimes three defenders and more often than not makes fools out of each of them.
Also, I don’t think anyone can rightfully call Riquelme a mercenary – at this point in his career, he could easily be getting much more money at a smaller European team that would make him their star than at Boca.
Finally someone who says it like it is about Anelka. Apart from the goals he scored for Real Madrid in 2000 he didn’t put it in the net at the highest level, whether by coincidence or because he wasn’t as good as people said.
Leagues aren’t the highest level, no matter how much clueless dudes drool over the Premier League. So he played for Arsenal Liverpool PSG et al, big effing deal. How many goals did he score for France in tournaments? How many international tournaments did he even go to? How many goals in the knockout stages of the Champions League?
You can’t blame the guy for not caring! I too hate my job, maybe he always wanted to play rugby and his mum would let him….
@M.G. Uh, you don’t know much about football do you? The order goes- CL, the top three leagues (currently EPL, LL, SA in no particular order- La Liga would be top but it’s so financially skewed it makes the other two look straight), international football. Who doesn’t know that? Barca are the world champions with added Messi, hence better. Several club teams would have given Spain a harder time than Holland managed. Even Everton West, I mean, the USA gave them a mild tonking, though no one in real football gives a toss what the USA does.
I really couldn’t care less what some teenage septic thinks of the perpetually adequate Anelka, but I still hope he has the author of this rubbishy piece killed, because he can. And it would disprove all those ‘dispassionate’ jibes. He won’t though. He’ll just sleep on a bed of cash surrounded by lovely ladies.
@Baby Jebus I repeat: what goals did Anelka score in the Champions League against other ‘top ten’ type clubs? Why didn’t France decide he was up to it for most of the decade? If international football is so shit and easyin your eyes, why didn’t he score many goals at tournaments?
I think we can now characterize Anelka as inscrutable.
@Dan G. I totally agree re: Riquelme, an underrated genius whose style of play (unfortunately) has pretty much disappeared from the modern game. But a mercenary he ain’t, though he’s just as divisive a figure as Anelka.
Anelka’s career was severely damaged by his halfwit brother & ‘agent’, Claude. He was badly advised at the start of his time in professional footballer vis a vis the move to Real Madrid etc, etc.
I think he can be quite a disagreeable character sometimes but there are plenty worse plying their trade in football.
@gtm I agree, it’s more that he’s simply not personable rather than a nasty character, and if you’ve read Simon Kuper’s book you see very well that Real Madrid fucked him over.
Still, he to take a penalty in the 2008 Champs League final (even though he’s a professional forward probably brought on in those circumstances to take a penalty) on the basis of the coach not bringing him on till late and Anelka felt slighted. That attitude positively reeks of self-centredness, and in the circumstances I’m glad it was he who failed.
I meant to say, “His refusal to take a penalty in the 2008 Champs League final”
@El Vite I hate you for hating Riquelme…
@M.G.
There is the intriguing possibility that Anelka is a very successful professional footballer who doesn’t like and /or is indifferent to professional football. It might explain his peripatetic career of dressing room bust ups & restless club changes.
On that analysis his behaviour is logical – he’s using his limited career span to set his family up for life & to hell with what anyone else thinks.
I like your conviction about hating Anelka, I just don’t share the same feelings.
I used to hate Anelka for basically the same reasons as you but I feel like he’s changed over the last few years. He seems to be a more compromising and less egotistical person nowadays.
Granted, he was a driving force at what went on with France in the last World Cup, but the more I read about that situation, the more I think that many of us may have reacted the same way as the players (Domenech was horrid on so many levels).
I’m pretty sure that if Anelka were asked how he thinks the world perceives him, he would undoubtedly say “misunderstood” and give us that classic stone-faced, pissed-off look.
But it’s probably hard to be a highly talented, aging striker who wants (1) to make tons of money, and (2) get playing time. So it doesn’t surprise me that he’s leaving Chelsea for China.
@M.G. International football isn’t ‘easy and shit’. It just isn’t at the same level as CL or the top league clashes, because the players aren’t as good (Spain apart), they don’t play together regularly, and they aren’t as committed, due to financial security presumably. [I accept that lesser football nations like Australia, USA and the like might more easily fall for the myth of nationalism] Anelka is a good, not great footballer who will be most remembered for peaking early and bottling it in a CL final. But won’t be fondly remembered by anyone, except a few landlords and bling sellers.
@Baby Jebus Yep, I concede/agree that top league clashes are a better standard than international football. When I spoke against the quality of leagues I was more referring to your usual two (Spain) to three (England) superclubs bowling over 17 other glorified pub teams.
Regards
I can definitely see how Anelka’s style of play might seem as a day old opened beer. Don’t fancy him either, at all without even getting in that mercenary issues. I mind even more that attidute as if he is going to punch out a card on his way off the field. One thing that I can not agree on is
“For the second group, we’re amazed at how easily they pull off supposedly impossible things. Xabi Alonso does such things routinely.”
which is true in a world of individuals with severly impaired motorical skills because only in this world do things which Xabi Alonso does routinely seem impossible. I bet Xabi Alonso himself can’t remember when’s the last time he had more than two touches on the ball, one when he receives it and the other usually when he passes it to the man standing most of the time in his closest proximity. Unless there is another Xabi Alonso of which I am not aware of, in order for that sentence to make sense we would have to use that adidas slogan and say that ” impossible is NOTHING” in which case Xabi Alonso does some quite impossible things on regular basis.
As far as it goes for Juan Roman Riquelme, who ever has wit, spirit and motivation to think of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5aOO_Oq_lc
can’t be blamed for not caring, because there is more passion, joy and celebration of the game in these 5 seconds than Xabi Alonso will accumulate in his whole career. Peace&out
@T.E.M. Bravo! Encore!
“which is true in a world of individuals with severly impaired motorical skills because only in this world do things which Xabi Alonso does routinely seem impossible.”
Best line ever! I share your sentiments, although I’ve only seen Madrid play once and Alonso was absolutely outstanding. He plays a certain role, that’s for sure, but God, can he play that role!
@Dan G. I guess it is the perceived lack of passion that bothered me the most… Also the fact that he decided to go to Boca and deprived the rest us of his play may have made it worse.
@El Vite really!? I love Riquelme. One of my all time favorites. So exciting/frustrating to watch him because at any moment he can create something brilliant but you have to wait for it. I’m drawn to the players who tease you with brilliance rather than those who are consistently brilliant. The anticipation… The ups and downs are what make it worth it to follow players/clubs. Also Ray Hudson talking about him is the best!
Being French, I can’t help but feel immediate hatred at Anelka. Not only because of what happened on the World Cup, and his horrible performances for Les Bleus, where he genuinely seemed to not care (I still remember that free-kick he took against Mexico, except it looked more like my 9-year-old-brother kicking a ball in spite when he’s upset then a professionnal footballer playing in a World Cup match). There’s a whole history of Anelka’s idiocy with the national team (like what happened back in 2002). And, might I remind to those that say that Domenech was horrible – he was actually the one who really reintroduced him to the national side (even though he was playing just OK at Bolton Wanderers), and thus boosted his career back on track.
And not to mention his declaration about not wanting to pay his taxes because he believed the money belonged to him and him alone, that, that was dirty. I think that was what really initiated the break between him and most French people.
Well I am a full out Chelsea fan, yet I have this same sort of feeling towards Anelka. However, for me, I feel it is because a lack of loyalty…he just trades teams for money and this doesn’t sit well with me. Although, he has given lots to Chelsea (in terms of goals and such) and for this I am happy, so at the end of the day I remain pretty neutral about him!
Anelka was, and is, a terrific player with a talent that far exceeds his apparent passion for the game. Having watched Shanghai Shenhua a dozen times in the last couple of seasons, I can tell you that he will be by far the best player on the team, but I doubt his ability to counter the malaise that has crippled the league as a whole. Any enthusiasm that Chinese fans had for local clubs has been totally wiped out by the match-fixing scandals of the last few seasons, and a general understanding that key games are rarely decided on the pitch. I can see Anelka turning up for five minutes of each game, scoring some magnificent goals, and spending the rest of his time here kowtowing to the advertisers. As well as he can play, I don’t think he will be prepared for the greater ‘game’ of Chinese football and all its aspects. I would bet on him being back in Europe by the end of the season.
@Baby Jebus Holland very nearly won that final several times my friend, everyone knows that they are simply cursed when it comes to Finals.
I remember when I was about 10-11 years old and Iceland was playing France in Reykjavik, in a Euro or WC qualifier. Anelka was a u21 player of the French team and they sat almost next to us in the stadium. At half time, I asked my dad if we could go to him and get an autograph. We had a pen and paper, obviously. We went there and asked him as he sat there, and he just responded: “After the game.” And after the game, of course, he was gone. I have always thought of him as a complete douchebag ever since.
China’s league does have its problems, but to me they seem to be following the K-League and J-League plan of the mid-nineties, i.e. making the league clean and professional, getting businesspeople to buy up teams then bring in good overseas players, develop the infrastructure and stadia, get continental respect for the league, improve the quality of the national team, then make a bid for the World Cup.
China will most likely host the World Cup in 2030 or 2034. Anelka, Diego Conca, and the others are the starting point of that inevitable event.
Not a very convincing argument to hate on Anelka when you already, for personal reasons, hate on Anelka. Article essentially says nothing that we don’t already know. We don’t want to hear all your personal details unless you have something to say. Would’ve expected more from this publication.
We all need a hero and villain, even in this beautiful game. I agree with your observations, his body language is a dead give-away, he rather be anywhere but on the pitch.
A month and a half with nothing on Run of Play? I check this site almost every day, you guys are killing me. This is my favorite website on the entire internet. That is no exaggeration! Please come back!
@Michael Me too!!!
Are the Writers on Strike?? Come on
I love your post! Anelka is a mercenary!He is also a overrate player.
@Michael- -agreed.
Man does not live by bread alone, but also by reading intelligent sporticultural commentary.
@Gabe Seriously missing this site…
This is me expressing the fact that I’m bummed about the lack of updates around here.
This is a pretty unkind and unfair characterization. Now, if this had been written about someone like Bennoit Assou-Ekotou, then yes, I’d agree. Anelka is a supremely gifted and utterly frustrating player, and yes, he is pretty “whatever” about where and who he plays for, but he is hardly on his own in this regard. That he should be singled out for a barracking is just petulant and unfair.
Now, you’re writing from the States. What about David Beckham? Is there any more cynical, money grubbing footballer on the face of the planet? How about Thierry Henry? All these guys, even Landon Donovan, who is now doing one of his short-term loans at my club of choice, Everton, has never tested himself at a proper league (yeah, the Bundesliga, but c’mon… he traded that kind of quality in for sunshine and girls in bikinis) for any length of time. He moonlights in an average team (and I love my Toffees) where he shows proper quality, but always just goes back to Cali where he knows he’s the big shit on the team list. Other than Beckham, who I’ve already spoken about.
So, no, Anelka is not on his own. If you’re going to write an article this myopic, then whatever, it’s your call. But if you had a shred of decency, you’d open your scope a little wider. But then you are 23 and living in the Big Apple. Hope you enjoyed the Super Bowl.
@Phil The criticism isn’t lodged against players who merely take a better salary to go to a league of less quality. Obviously, there have been plenty of those. But your examples don’t really fit the more specifically Anelka-esque niche; That is, Where Beckham certainly had his problems in LA, the latest MLS Cup brought about exactly the sort of catharsis that simply isn’t possible for Anelka. In any regard, Beckham has spent more time with Galaxy than he has any other club except United, so insisting that he’s a mercenary with no sense of loyalty at this point begs further justification that his salary/quality. The criticism that Donavon “took the easy way out” has certainly been made before, and it probably holds more water than Americans care to admit, but he’s certainly never suffered from a lack of caring. And when Henry came to New York it simply wasn’t the case that he would have helped “all but 10″ clubs. He’s in New York to retire, to put an end to a magnificent career, the sort of career that Anelka never even seemed to care whether he had or not, where Henry’s current loan spell has demonstrated just how much his first time at Arsenal meant to him.
But that aside, you’re kind of missing the point. This article isn’t a criticism of Anelka per se; rather, it’s an exploration of how – and why – we as soccer fans develop in our own minds ideas of certain players as villains. And however invented those ideas may be, they matter to us. On a certain, highly cerebral level, we acknowledge that the narratives we invent are insignificant; For example, Anelka might be a fantastic father and he might actually give a shit, and all the other things that the author conceded. When we become football fans, though, we adopt a certain veil of fanhood that restricts our ability to discern that which truly matters in a more universal sense. For better or worse, fair or unfair, doing so keeps football interesting.
Atleast he takes orders in every club he plays unlike some Tevez people who are trying to carlos us out with ransom.
I still can’t believe Chelsea let him go, without a doubt he’s far better than Torres in any position on the pitch.
Also, runofplay died
I’m sick of seeing Anelka’s miserable face every time I check this site for updates. The least they could do would be to change up the image on the home page… Arrrgh, come back Run of Play!!
I agree with my main man James C Taylor. We at least need to know if Run of Play is kaput so we can stop checking the site.
@Nick Is it that painful to type in a URL and have a quick peek?
Rest assured: Run of Play will be back soon, and with 1200% more George R.R. Martin references.
@Brian Phillips – Sigh of relief from me. Thank you.
@Brian Phillips Assuredness fills me as I now rest.
@Brian Phillips Can I just say that your work on Grantland has been fantastic. Loved the new Arenas piece.
But yeah, more Run of Play. It was probably the best thing on the internet before Simmons cherry picked you.
Anelka is nothing more than a mercenary
@Phil I was kind of surprised when reading through the comments on this piece that it took so long for someone to mention Assou-Ekotto (a player who came right out and said he has no passion for the game and plays purely for the money). But you know what? Knowing that about Assou-Ekotto doesn’t actually negatively affect my opinion of him.
Even as a fan of Chelsea, I was never really a fan of Anelka during his tenure with the team. While I know just how much passion Assou-Ekotto has for the game (none), like the author of this article, I don’t actually know how much passion for the game Anelka has. The difference between these two players for me though is the way they play and carry themselves on the field. When I am watching a Tottenham game, I don’t remember ever really getting the impression from Assou-Ekotto that he doesn’t care. In every Spurs game I’ve seen, he still plays with energy and determination – that is, he looks like he wants to be on the field; he looks like he wants the team to win. Now that may just be because this could increase his paychecks, but the perception of effort is still there.
However, when watching Anelka play, as good as he was at times, I could never really tell if he actually wanted to be doing what he was doing. He always seemed to carry himself with a sort of mopey indifference at best (or at least from what I remember) and seemed to be outright pouting at worst. To me, it only ever really seemed to care whether he was on the pitch or not when he wasn’t actually getting to play. That is what I’ll remember most about the way Anelka played.
excellent , I’m glad I’m not the only one who cannot stand him. he never seemed to take fotball seriously, overrated, overpaid. I’ll never forget how he struck that penalty in Moscow.
How is he doing in China?
@Sheedy The Koreans and the Japanese didn’t really have to deal with the same level of corruption. Also, their homegrown players aren’t all thugs.
@Al Same here there is something about Carlos Tevez I will never like or get used to. Poor Guy
Its just how money is in football these days. My friend did this article and put it on the web and although he is justifying the spending. I believe that there should be a cap on things like this. Football is slowly dying due to money. http://www.breadandbutterfootball.com/money-in-football-the-game-changer/
I think we will see Anelka back in Europe before he hangs up his boots for the final time. He could still play in the Premiership but don’t be too suprised if you see him play in France one last time.
I agree with Suhrith “He brought immense joy to my life, alright. When he struck that meek penalty in Moscow!”
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The Alonso analogy is terrible, one of the most technically drilled players in the world.
At his peak (granted there have been three peaks to his career thus far) Anelka was devastating in the most exciting way. In his nonchalance he frustrates because of the explosive pace, power and finishing he has exhibited .
Soccer is a game with personality — teams create a persona of their own on the pitch, and the attitude of the team’s players are what create it.
This is why we adore Messi, find joy in Brazilian-style futbol, and hate Nickolas Anelka.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Ryan.
Anelka is a very good player with a very bad environment. I remember when he was in Madrid… Too young for this kind of adventures! I wish him a very good stay in China!
@Simon Completely agree with this. It’s clearly Anelka and Drogba aren’t enjoying their Chinese experience.
I think Anelka will be back to play in Europe for one last year. I think he still has a bit to offer too. Could Big Sam come in and snap him up? I doubt it. I think wages might be the stumbling block for many potential suitors.
If I’m honest, I think the majority of footballers just won’t be able to make the adjustment to such a different culture. Not in a football sense but the lifestyle. We’ve seen time and again the vast amount of footballers who go over there and return less than a year later. Anelka, for me, has always been a question. In fact, I recently wrote an article about his lacklustre approach and lack of love for the game.
He’s a snapper head.
i love the personality of Anelka. great human and great footballer.
I agree “And then there’s the remarkably curious case of Carlos Tevez. Good Lord he tries and tries, yet I still hate him, the passionate mercenary he “
He didn’t last long in China ha, him and Drogba both jumped ship as soon as they could. Anelka is now playing his 11th professional club…. Such a loyal player
Yeah, another one gone. Maybe a crap league in China but they have the money to afford top players. Anelka was never my best player but it would have been better if he stayed.
@Brian Phillips Come on!!!! Why is Run of Play taking forever to resurrect?I mean, this was my best blog on the internet.
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Excellently written.
@Jordan Street thanks
Holland very nearly won that final several times my friend, everyone knows that they are simply cursed when it comes to Finals……..
I’m glad that he return to Premier League where he belongs!
After all he returns to England where he belongs