The last Ben Arfile: Hatem presented to the press…

So, after a few days of doubt, Hatem Ben Arfa is offically a Marseille player. After having proved numerous times in a very short period how much he wanted to play for us newt season (going as far as to refuse Real Madrid offers while Lyon’s Michel Facciolli was dangling it in front of his eyes and trying to convince him to meet with the Madridista emissaries), Hatem Ben Arfawill now have to win over the Vélodrome crowd with his playing skills. I can assure you that with his behavior so far, he’ll be welcomed, at first, as if it were Mathieu Flamini returning. Hatem played the classic “This was the club of my dreams growing-up” card but backed it up by accepting to lose a million in cash.
He was then presented to the press this afternoon and surprise! He’s not wearing number 22 as we all saw him yesterday but #20. So technically, #22 is still “THE OTHER GUY”’s property.
We’ll see who will be wearing that shirt next year. Some publications have started extrapolating that Samir Nasri may not be as close to Arsenal as we thought he might have been. I’m still not convinced as to what is going on there. When you hear Arsène Wenger signing youngsters right and left, you can’t but wonder.
To focus back on Hatem Ben Arfa, he hopefully won’t be one of those talents wasted in Marseille like Pedretti or even more recently Karim Ziani, who came in hailed as one of the best players in Ligue 1 but whose ego and attitude made him fail in a team that was supposedly “made for guys like him”. We’re going to have to wait and see how HBA fits into the club with his teammates.

Category: French Ligue 1, MERCATO, Players

Tags: French Ligue 1, Hatem BEN-ARFA, Mathieu FLAMINI, MERCATO, Pape Diouf, Players, Samir Nasri, stephane pedretti

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