Au Revoir Claude
Ordinarily I wouldn’t start my first entry proper writing about Chelsea (being a Chelsea fan), but with the departure of Claude Makelele still fresh in the news and the surprising lack of tributes to his contribution to the premiership I thought it was definitely worth it.
Claude in many senses is just a standard footballer, pretty short, terrible long ball passer and piss poor at shooting – so bad that over the past 5 series of Pro Evo that I have dedicated far too much time to, I’ve managed to score one goal with the cheeky Parisian, ONE, I attempted more, believe me. But what he lacks in silky skills he makes up in pure tenacity and timing; a defensive midfielder so good that premiership pundits and managers the world over have adopted his name to explain the role more clearly.
Everywhere he’s played Claude has made the midfielders he covers look better, notably Zidane and Lampard. Granted Zidane doesn’t need anyone to make him look good but Makelele’s departure from Real Madrid really was the end for the Galaticos – Real Madrid didn’t win the league again until 2006 (Claude left in 2003) and are yet to get close to a Champions League final since beating Bayern Leverkusen in 2002. Don’t get me wrong that Madrid team probably would have won alot without him but his contribution was definitetly appreciated by the likes of Zidane, Figo, Raul and I am sure Lampard would give alot of credit to him for those two amazing seasons he had upon Claude’s arrival – anyone else notice Lampard’s form has dipped since Maka’s inevitable reduction of appearances over the last two years?
The best thing about Makelele’s is how he kept it simple, always there in the right position covering counter attacks, scampering around like a crab, using his body to muscle into tackles and then simply tapping it over to Lampard, Essien and the like to take it forward. His influence on Chelsea’s set up and attacking style is so big that it will be very strange to see the possible 4-2-2-2 that Scolari supposedly is planning. But I think my favourite thing about Makelele was his fouling – never have I seen a player get away with so many yellow cards before; his big teethy grin while putting his hands either together in prayer or open gesture was a typical site while chatting to the ref completely convinced of his own innocence. I couldn’t find a particularly good example on t’internet but something like this:
And not only is he quality he is also shacked up with one of my favourite ladies; one of the Mark’s and Spencer’s models:
It’s going to be interesting to see how Chelsea work without him to fall back on. Avram Grant resorted back to him with reasonably good success (unless you define success like Abramovich). If Felipe resorts to the 4-2-2-2 then it shouldn’t be a problem but with the amount of midfielders Chelsea have this season, its going to be difficult to keep them all happy and play expansive football – resorting back to Claude would always be an amazing luxry regardless of his age. But who will be the new ‘Makelele’? I think Hargreaves and Mascherano could be up there – it’ll be interesting to see how Hargreaves does if he stays fit this season while as for Mascherano, he definitely has the potential but it all depends on if Rafa keeps him in regularly and if Alonso goes to Inter. Even so you will never find the defensive postion being called the ‘Hargreave’, the ‘Mascherano’ or er the ‘Savage’ role will you? The 2008-09 season is going to be sweet, good luck to Claude, Chelsea will definitely miss him.
Here he is scoring one of possibly two (?) goals during his Chelsea career: