Saturday morning MEGA update…

By: Magnusson | July 11th, 2008

I promised myself I wouldn’t make this a habit but a lot happened this week IRL (In Real Life for all you World of Warcraft fansd out there) so I didn’t get enough time to post a thing on here.

Arsenal finally gets Samir Nasri.

First of all, the latest news comes from France Football and is certainly not the least important news of the day. Samir Nasri who has been linked with the Gunners for about two months now finally signed with Arsenal. The contract is reportedly for four years and Marseille will receive 17 million euros (a little more than previously announced). After having played 121 games and scored 11 goals in Ligue 1 with Marseille ever since José Anigo threw him in with the big boys in 2004, Samir Nasri has been considered a fan’s favorite at the Vélodrome mainly for his origins but also because he represented the return of the Minots to the forefront (alongside Flamini at the time) and a bright future for the club. I will write a little more about Samir when I get back home to give im the proper send-off but his departure should have happened differently.
Good luck to him.

Bakary Koné still hasn’t signed with us.

Now let’s get updated on the Bakary Koné situation. Baky has voiced some strong feelings on his personal website stating how he was about to leave last season and could have but had a deal with President Maurice Cohen about how Nice wouldn’t get in his way if he wanted to leave this year and wouldn’t be too greedy on the asking price. Apparently, the two parties even came to an agreement on a mention, the now famous “market price” that Nice would ask for. Baky Koné felt betrayed by the Nice staff. They did not feel that way at all. President Cohen was pretty clear in his explanation when he answered his player. He stated that when he wanted to leave last year and was evaluated at 6-8 million by the “market” he already felt he was more of a 10 million player and set the price at that. He also added that after an incredible season (that’s true) and an exceptionnal African Cup of Nations (I’d be less positive about that), he scored 14 goals and was evn classy enough to let Ederson shoot the last penalty in the last matchday to make sure the future Lyon player would have a proper goodbye with his public.

Koné evidently is one of the classiest players out there and his tiff with the Nice wouldn’t ruin his reputaion with the fans over there. Frédéric Antonetti said he would welcome him back with open arms if the deals didn’t go through.

For the moment, Koné is officially injured and Cohen has apparently shut down any possibility of the player going to Marseille this year. Yet Pape Diouf still assured that the negociations were still on. I’m guessing that with Samir Nasri officially gone, the perspective of having Mathieu Valbuena still play on the right side of our attack while Nasri and Ben Arfa were respectively in the playmaking position and on the left side is no longer an option (I know this sounds incredible but in the last two weeks, despite a lot of declarations from all parties involved, there was a wild rumor that with SpongeBob - Owner Robert Louis-Dreyfus - would want to keep Samir one more season. He did it with Ribéry two seasons ago and seemed set on doing it again.). Now with Samir gone, we have enough dough to get this deal done. Let’s not lose another great player for a matter of 500.000 euros, gentlemen.

Let’s now focus a little bit on the infirmary.

I hate this part but we can pretty much pinpoint our poor season start to Mamadou Niang and Samir Nasri’s simultaneous injuries last year at the same time. Both players got injured and Marseille wasn’t really ready until November. Had we had more luck we may hae had been able to bother Bordeaux and Lyon a little more than we did. Anyways, this season, we have some pretty important players already in the infirmary or finally getting out of it.

The saddest news is that André Ayew got injured and won’t partake in the Evian preparation. The young Ghanean international hurt his ankle against Bastia on Saturday. His ankle will heal but I hope his shortened preparation won’t mirror Samir Nasri’s who had trouble looking like himself until March of this year.

Another newbie hurt is fresh new third-keeper Hilaire Munoz who got injured on Thursday morning while ha was training. The third keeper whom I don’t know and haven’t even heard of before (He’s coming from the local club of Cassis, the nearby village where Frank Leboeuf was born and many player live). I didn’t even have the time to seek some informtion on the dude that he’s already sidelined.

Another bad news (I guess it is “technically” bad news), Karim Ziani was pretty badly injured when he tore left-thigh muscle, an injury that could necessitate six weeks of rest. The odd thing is, after the altercation he had last season with Eric Gerets during the Carquefou match, Karim Ziani was supposed to be gone by now. And he’s not. I’ve even seen him exchanging jokes with the coach. So his future is unknown but maybe Gerets will want to keep him. It’s apparently entirely his decision to make.

Someone who will soon be leaving the hands of our doctors and chiropractors is Mathieu Valbuena. Last season’s revelation was injured just before the Strasbourg game and cancelled his vacation to go back and forth from Marseille to Bordeaux and to make sure he would be ready for the Champion’s League preliminary games. After the last MRI scheduled on the 21st, mathieu who is at the moment in Evian with the rest of the team will be fully fit to join his teammates. “The Moped”, as he’s affectionnately called by his coach, will be followed more closely this season. He’s fully aware that his status has changed and that the marseille staff expect him to take over Samir Nasri’s spot behind the strikers. He’ll get a whole new set of responsibilities and will have to be worthy of the trust.

Another key player that is practically out is Julien Rodriguez. The “Boss” missed a lot of games last season and with the new compettion, he’ll be supposed to be the starter, alongside Hilton. He has proven many times before that he’s a world-class defender if he’s healthy. His string of injuries have showed how much weight he’s put on i the past few months and even he confessed to being humiliated twice and won’t want it to happen again. One of the newbies called up by Domenech when Thuram left the French National Team, he’ll have a real challenge, at 28, now that France are seemingly headed into a new direction. People like Didier Deschamps have long said that he deserved to be in the French NT, let’s start by earning back that spot in the Marseille squad.

El Amin Erbate is presented to the press.

While everybody and their third-cousin was focused on Bakary Koné not coming, El Amin Erbate (the right ortograph, I’m sorry I misspelled it all this time) has been presented to the press right before the players and the staff left for Evian and Eric Gerets expressed his fondness of the player and how much he liked his different performances (notably against France and Belgium this past winter) and how much he expected of him. I’ve seen Erbate play a few more times since I heard he was coming and he’s one of those defenders you don’t notice on the pitch because the striker doesn’t get enough time to breathe or to try anything to make him “shine”. He just seems slow but somehow manages to be everywhere just before the forwards can. I’m looking forward to seeing him play with us. If he is half as classy as us as he is with the Morroccan team, let’s just say, he’ll become a fan’s favourite.

La Victoire est à Nous.

Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of France winning their World Cup and to celebrate it, France 98 will face an international team of superstars for charity at the Stade de France. All in all, it i no less than 10 ex-Marseille players who will be present on the pitch or on the bench in Saint-Denis: Fabien Barthez, Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly, Franck Leboeuf, Bixente Lizarazu, Alain Boghossian, Didier Deschamps, Robert Pires, Christophe Dugarry and Sonny Anderson.
Add Zidane (he’s an honorary player, being the local hero and all) and that’s an entire team!

France 98 coached by Aimé Jacquet

Keepers : Barthez, Charbonnier, Lama, Ramé
Defenders : Blanc, Desailly, Leboeuf, Lizarazu, Candela, Thuram
Midfielders : Boghossian, Deschamps, Vieira, Djorkaeff, Karembeu, Zidane, Pires, Micoud
Strikers : Dugarry, Guivarc’h, Diomède, Henry, Trezeguet, Anelka, Wiltord

Technically, Ulrich Ramé, Johan Micoud, Nicolas Anelka and Silvain Wiltord are not World Cup winners but special circumstances. Ramé wasn’t the 4th keeper either, Lionel Létizi was. Him and Nico Anelka were part of the 6 players who got kicked out during the night (alongside Sabri Lamouchi, Ibrahim Ba, Martin Djetou and Pierre Laigle. Or was it Tony Vairelles? I always mix these two on this aprticular matter). Wiltord, Ramé and Micoud won the Euro 2000 though so they’re part of the legend too.

World All Stars coached by Arsène Wenger and Hristo Stoïtchkov

Keepers : Vitor Baia (POR), Buffon (ITA), Kameni (CAM)
Defenders : Cocu (HOL), Couto (POR), F. de Boer (HOL), Hierro (ESP), Le Saux (ANG), Song (CAM)
Midfielders: Boban (CRO), Davids (HOL), Jorgensen (DAN), Juninho (BRA), Kharpin (RUS), Litmanen (FIN), Saïb (ALG)
Strikers : Sonny Anderson (BRA), Batistuta (ARG), Figo (POR), Pauleta (POR), Sheringham (ANG), Suker (CRO), Eto’o (CAM)

That’s all for now. I’ll be abck tomorrow morning with some more news about “Drogbathon”, We’ll discuss the first three friendlies we lost and I’ll try to give Samir Nasri his deserved goodbye.

Peace