Chelsea, Premier League

As Claude Makelele slipped quietly off to Paris St-Germain it constituted the most low-key of exits. The manner of his departure could hardly have been further removed from his Chelsea entrance, when he departed Real Madrid in immensely acrimonious circumstances five years ago, having refused to train at one point because Madrid were refusing him a pay rise.

He felt undervalued, and with some justification, in the star-obsessed ‘Galacticos’ culture of Florentino Perez’s Real Madrid. The exception was amongst his team-mates; Steve McManaman called him “the best player at Real” in his autobiography. Yet the most apt encapsulation of what Makelele meant to Real came from Zinedine Zidane. Commenting on a summer in which they bought David Beckham but lost the one man who they could not replace, he said “Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”

But in Chelsea and above all Jose Mourinho, Makelele found an environment in which the engine was given its due. He even had a place named after him: ‘Makelele land’.

Upon joining Chelsea a year after Makelele, Mourinho tended to favour ‘hungry’ players with their best years ahead of them. Yet he valued the Frenchman to such an extent that he had no qualms making him an exception to this rule. He was well advanced into his 32nd year, with an impressive medal count, when Mourinho took charge. But Makelele is a player whose value extends way beyond his running ability and physical fitness. His footballing brilliance lies in the sheer subtlety of his game.

English media and fans have been notorious for their under-valuing of players who shirk from being at the heart of the action. Makelele, as a rule, simply did not make or score goals. His tackling, meanwhile, lacked the brute force and sheer unforgettable impact of Roy Keane or Patrick Vieira. Gallivanting runs were not for him either. But, for those whose football watching amounted to more than Match of the Day, it was impossible to escape his contribution.

If the maxim of Mourinho’s Chelsea was ‘you score none, we only have to score one’, than it was Makelele, in large part, who made it all possible. He was the invisible wall that ensured the backline was redundant for large spells of matches. Makelele’s positional sense was sublime, as he took patrolling the gap between midfield and defence into a virtual art form. No one, it seemed could outfox this canniest of operators, a man whose selflessness and willingness to engage in one of football’s least glamorous roles essentially made Chelsea’s success all possible. Even at 35, he was an invaluable member of the side who so nearly triumphed in the Champions League.

Ironically, it was in a defeat that Makelele’s worth to Chelsea was made indisputable. When Chris Coleman masterminded a 1-0 defeat by Fulham in March 2006, he emphasised the manner in which they had nullified Makelele, through the use of Steed Malbranque, ostensibly an attacking midfielder, to effectively mark him. Coleman commented, “Every time we play against Chelsea or every time we watch them play, everything goes through Makelele and he starts the attacks.”

It may have seemed an unusual thing to say about a player whose inability to score goals is of legendary proportions. But Makelele was a phenomenon for Chelsea, the unobtrusive midget who helped this country’s footballing public understand there was much more to being a team player than the ‘British Bulldog’ spirit. He may have felt undervalued and unloved in Madrid, but could certainly not say the same about his half-decade’s worth of sterling work at Stamford Bridge.

Tags: Chelsea, Claude Makelele, Jose Mourinho

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