The Time-Bomb and the Brazilian Baby

By: John | October 27th, 2008

I have a very low tolerance for “Diva-ish” behavior, no matter how talented a player may be. And as much as I dislike both of these immensely talented players, I decided to write a post because their fates may be intertwined – although highly unlikely- and I wouldn’t mind seeing both of them possibly doing OL a big favor in the future, by negatively affecting the current #2 team in L1, Marseille. The following post has to do with my two least favorite Lyon players, one past and the other present: Hatem Ben Arfa and Fred.

It seems that the malignancy that was extirpated from OL’s body this last season is finally beginning to metastasize in it’s new host, Olympique de Marseille. HBA is losing his mind, and hopefully Lyon will reap all the benfits. According to reports, Ben Arfa burst into Eric Gerets’ press conference after the Clasico and began to rant about needing to give an explanation about his non-participation in this weekend’s match against PSG. Apparently, HBA rufused to warm-up a half-an-hour before the end of the match, being angry that Gerets did not start him in the biggest game of the season for him, in his native Paris. Ben Arfa interrupted the press conference and said: “I have to make everything clear. I made an innapropriate gesture because I am a competitor! I had time to apologize to the coach.” HBA then left the conference just as abrubtly as he had entered, leaving Gerets to explain what had prompted these words and what it all meant. Gerets had a flippant attitude and went on to say that everything had been talked about and the issues were resolved. But then, although Gerets took on a joking tone, how he described the problem with Ben Arfa didn’t sound so trivial.

He went on to say: “This could have ended with blows on both sides, but I’m a mature coach now. He had refused[to enter warm-up] because he was not mentally sorted-out. I had a meeting with him after the match. I knew that it would be direct and that it could either resolve the problem or make it worse. Fortunately, today, everything has been ironed-out. We kissed and made-up. It is the first time in my career that this has happened to me. But I think I had a fine interview. I’m happy with myself. I hope that that won’t happen again, but if it does, we musn’t put our heads in the sand. We must look to resolve the problem through discussion.”

Gerets claimed to have “turned the page” on the issue, saying that it could be quite possible that Hatem be included in the group against Nantes on Wednesday. He went to comment on HBA’s reputation: “Frankly, I don’t care about all the things I heard about him before he arrived. I’m beginning to understand his personality. When I called him before he arrived, I told him that we were sure to have good days and bad days. Right now, I think he’s had more good than bad.”

Although we saw a tiny flash of Hatem’s attitude problem in his training session scrap with Djibril Cisse – unfortunately Cisse took-off for Sunderland before he could teach the young man a proper lesson- things have been quiet at OM since then.

As for our other problem child, according to Le Parisien, Marseille is making the signing of Fred their priority, should Sunderland decide to take the option-to-buy on Cisse’s loan. Officials from OM are said to have already been in contact with Fred’s brother/agent. The article also says that JMA is putting lots of pressure on the Fred camp to sign a contract extension before Jan 1.

I’m not so sure that JMA will continue to supply OL’s biggest competitor with more higly talented, albiet emotionaly unbalanced players, especially if Fred continues his current form. With Lyon’s tenous grip on first place and the gap between OL and other teams in L1 almost nonexistent despite Lyon’s spending spree this summer, I doubt JMA would sell Fred to the team that poses the biggest threat to OL’s primacy in L1. But if Fred does sign a contract extension and OM outbids the other parties by a substantial margin, Lyon’s two resident problem children of last season could be reunited.

If that were to happen, we can only hope that HBA and Fred cause enough problems to make OM’s squad cohesion seem like a knee with no cartilage and then Marseille will have issues on the offensive side to add to their defensive woes. On the other hand, those two playing in sync together with Bakari Kone, Mamadou Niang, Mathieu Valbuena, Boudewijen Zenden, Elliot Grandin and company, is a scary thought and could make OM the strongest squad in France.