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In a documentary on Netflix, Nicolas Anelka reveals details about his career as a professional footballer (1996-2015) as rich as it was eventful, marked by exploits and controversies such as his exclusion from the France team during the 2010 World Cup.
Let’s start by evacuating a subject: no, Nicolas Anelka does not reveal in his documentary, released on August 5, 2020 on Netflix, which revealed to the media his altercation with the former coach of the France team Raymond Domenech, in mid -time of a 2010 World Cup match. Altercation relayed by the daily The team and which led to his exclusion from the “Blues”, then the famous players’ strike in Knysna. The biggest fiasco in the history of French football.
Patrice Evra : « Nicolas told me he wanted to leave »Before the World Cup
On the other hand, in Anelka : The misunderstood, the ex-striker and a cohort of former partners or relatives (such as Thierry Henry, Arsène Wenger or actor Omar Sy) give a different reading of this top-secret character, his outbursts and his controversies.
Thus, 25 of the 94 minutes of the documentary are devoted to the World Cup in South Africa: from the sluggish qualification with two hands of Thierry Henry against Ireland, to the legal consequences given to the front page of The team, through Nicolas Anelka’s desire to leave the selection just before the competition. Patrice Évra, captain during this shipwreck, said, ten years later: “ He told me he wanted to leave, because he felt something was going to go wrong. And I told him ‘no, Nico, stop your nonsense. ‘ He answers me : ‘Pat, I promise you, I feel like something big is going to happen.’ »
« If I could get Euro 2000 off my charts, I would do it easily »
An anecdote among many others concerning a player who will have locked his communication for more than two decades. Until the release of this documentary, directed by Franck Nataf and produced by Black Dynamite.
There are sometimes touching moments, like the one when Nicolas Anelka tells his two sons how, at about the same age as them, he left his family and friends in Trappes (Paris region) to join the National Institute. of Clairefontaine football. Or the short sequences where he lets glimpse his attachment to his adopted religion, Islam.
Others are more surprising, like the one where Nicolas Anelka assures us that the former coach Aimé Jacquet justified his departure from the group for the 1998 World Cup in France with these words: ” You, it’s normal ! “Or when the person underlines that, dissatisfied with his performance during Euro 2000, if he could withdraw this title from his list, he would do it” easily “. Or when the Parisian ensures that the “quenelle” – controversial gesture popularized by the polemicist Dieudonné – carried out in 2013 was aimed at his ex-trainer in West Bromwich Albion, Steve Clarke.
Holes in its course
Of course, Nicolas Anelka unrolls the thread of more well-known events: his debut for Paris Saint-Germain at 16, his transfer to Arsenal at the age of 17, the double Championship-FA Cup with the “Gunners” , his mixed time at Real Madrid, his regrets not to have stayed in Liverpool, his mini-crossing of the desert via Manchester City, his surprise experience in Turkey, his missed goal with Chelsea against Manchester United in the League final 2008 champions …
Astonishing, however, certain episodes, such as his return to PSG (2000-2002), are completely zapped in the documentary. It is true that there was a lot to say about his career. However, Nicolas Anelka had hardly said anything about his life as a footballer, until this day. ” It is at the end of your career that you realize what you have been able to do. Either you are proud. Either you say to yourself ‘I made the victim and I made the sheep for 20 years‘. What I didn’t necessarily want to tell myself and do ‘ », He concludes.
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