A good movie

Everyone who's slightly familiar with French football, at least, from my generation, has heard about Nicolas Anelka so I have to admit that I was quite eager to check this documentary. Indeed, pretty much from the very beginning of his career, Anelka became the black sheep of the French football, probably even more than Eric Cantona in the 90's. Obviously, with this movie, you get a pretty good summary of his 20 years career during which he played for more than 10 clubs in 7 different countries. Eventually, you might still wonder if the whole thing has not been a huge waste. I mean, on one hand, Anelka was very early on in his career on the verge of becoming the biggest player of the planet but he never fulfilled these expectations. On the other hand, following his retirement, you get to see him with his wife and kids living a quiet life in Dubai so was it all so bad after all? The point was that Anelka kept saying that he was a highly motivated professional but his behaviour of jumping ship every 2 years didn't display much motivation in my opinion. Concerning his behaviour outside the field, even if the makers tried to rehabilitate his image, he still seemed to be a guy who didn't give a f*ck about anything except for himself and, since football is a team sports, well, it's hardly surprising that it never really worked. There was still something rather shocking though. Indeed, back in 2010, during the world cup debacle, like any one else, I was convinced that the French national football team at the time was pretty much the worst team that ever existed mostly for their despicable behaviour. However, thanks to this movie, I discovered that the French newspaper pretty much made up what Anelka said and that the French coach, Raymond Domenech, actually denied it 10 years later. I mean, the damage and aftermath following this scandal was huge and to blame it mostly on Anelka because he was an easy target was seriously lousy. Anyway, even if I would have appreciate some comments from people who didn't support him, it was still a decent documentary and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in this subject.

7/10