For most players, signing for Real Madrid is the ultimate dream. But for Nicolas Anelka, it quickly turned into a nightmare. The French striker has admitted he “hated it” from day one, overwhelmed by the fame, attention, and relentless scrutiny that came with being a Galactico.
Less than two years after arriving at Arsenal as a fresh-faced 17-year-old, Anelka became the most expensive teenager in football history, joining Los Blancos for £22.3million in 1999. He had just finished the 1998/99 season with 17 Premier League goals and was widely seen as a future superstar.
On paper, the move made perfect sense. Where better to fulfil his immense potential than at the biggest club in Europe? But instead of launching him into the stratosphere, the switch stalled his rise – and nearly derailed his entire career.
“I understood what it meant to be a star when I arrived at Real Madrid, and I hated it,” Anelka, now 46, revealed on the Netflix documentary Anelka: Misunderstood. “After being greeted at the airport by fans and journalists, I thought: ‘What am I doing here? This is too hard.’ It was the beginning of a nightmare.
“I felt a lot of pressure from the start. Every day in the Spanish press there was an article or a photo about me.”
A slow start to life in the Spanish capital made matters worse. With Raul and Fernando Morientes ahead of him in the pecking order, Anelka was reduced to a bit-part role, and it took him five months to score his first goal for the club.
He ended the campaign with just two La Liga goals, and that summer he was sold to PSG. “I would have liked to score more, but I didn’t have the chance, and I didn’t measure up,” Anelka admitted.
“Too many things happened. In part, I do regret it. Players always want to play for Real Madrid. There were too many sacrifices to make and I was too young to understand.”
Anelka’s spell at the Bernabeu lasted just a year – but by then, the damage was done. His confidence shaken, he struggled to recapture the spark he’d shown weekly at Highbury, and by 2002, the once record-breaking prodigy was turning out for a mid-table Manchester City side.
Looking back, Anelka admitted he should never have left Arsenal. Under Arsene Wenger’s guidance, he had flourished, though he failed to recognise just how good he had it at the time. Not that Gunners fans were left to lament for long – given that they replaced him with another gifted Frenchman: Thierry Henry.
It wasn’t until his 2008 move to Chelsea that Anelka finally found the platform his talents deserved. Forming a formidable partnership with Didier Drogba, he helped fire the Blues to a Premier League title and two FA Cup triumphs.
Though he left Stamford Bridge midway through Chelsea’s 2011/12 Champions League-winning campaign, Anelka avoided the sting of missing out – given he’d already lifted the trophy with Real Madrid 12 years earlier.
His nomadic career saw him later turn out for Shanghai Shenhua, Juventus, West Brom, and Mumbai City before retiring in 2015. He hung up his boots with over 220 career goals, including 14 for France.
Real Madrid face Arsenal in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final clash on Tuesday night. The Gunners are hoping to reach the semi-finals for the first time since 2009, where they were beaten by Manchester United.
Carlo Ancelotti, who led Los Blancos to European glory last season, is aiming to become just the second manager to win back-to-back Champions League titles in the tournament’s modern era. Zinedine Zidane remains the only man to have done it – leading Madrid to an historic three-peat from 2016 to 2018.
Ancelotti already stands alone as the most successful coach in Champions League history with five titles. A sixth would move him further ahead of Zidane, Bob Paisley, and Pep Guardiola, who each have three.
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