Claude Makélélé

[antonnn]

Full name: Claude Makélélé Sinda
Position: Defensive Midfield
Date of birth: 18th February, 1973
Place of birth: Kinshasa, Zaire
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 66 kg
Clubs: Nantes, Marseille, Celta, Real Madrid, Chelsea, PSG

Club
Nantes
Ligue 1: 1994–95

Real Madrid
UEFA Champions League: 2001–02
Supercopa de España (2): 2001, 2003
Intercontinental Cup: 2002
La Liga (2): 2000–01, 2002–03
UEFA Super Cup: 2002

Chelsea
FA Premier League (2): 2004–05, 2005–06
League Cup (2): 2004–05, 2006–07
FA Community Shield: 2005
FA Cup: 2006–07

Paris St Germain
Coupe de France: 2009–10

France
2006 FIFA World Cup: runner-up
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Some famous quotes regarding the great, great man.

Florentino Perez: "We will not miss Makélelé. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety percent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn't a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres. Younger players will arrive who will cause Makélelé to be forgotten."

Zinedine Zidane: "Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley(Beckham) when you are losing the entire engine?"

Fernando Hierro: "I think Claude has this kind of gift – he's been the best player in the team for years but people just don't notice him, don't notice what he does. But you ask anyone at Real Madrid during the years we were talking about and they will tell you he was the best player at Real. We all knew, the players all knew he was the most important. The loss of Makélelé was the beginning of the end for Los Galacticos… You can see that it was also the beginning of a new dawn for Chelsea. He was the base, the key and I think he is the same to Chelsea now."

Gotta laugh at Perez, what a moron. All Claude wanted was a better contract but was completely denied to which he ended up handing a transfer request. Thank you Perez, your stupidity heralded a big part of a new beginning for Chelsea, Makelele was an absolute monster for probably 4 of the 5 years he was there, slowly started to drop off during his 5th, but that didn't change anybody's opinion on him, at least at Chelsea. He will always be my favourite DM and is always the first name on my All-time best XI list.

Such a small guy, but so big on the field. I'll forever miss him.

He's currently the assistant manager at PSG.

 

[CatalinR10]

Makelele

 

[The Observer]

Very limited player, essentially a 5th centerback. One of the most overrated players in the recent history of the sport, based on the simple fact that no one in England had ever heard of 4-3-3 before Mourinho's arrival. So the SKY machinery invented their own description of it: "the Makelele role". Oh well, at least better than calling it "playing in the deep hole".

 

[antonnn]

You were almost funny, but no. You sound a bit like Florentino Perez though, whether you take that as a compliment or not is up to you.

Admittedly I was waiting for somebody to bring up "the Makelele role" name though. Who cares? It's homage to the most impressive "limited player" in recent times alongside Pippo Inzaghi. Both legends of the sport.

 

[The Observer]

Perez' fault wasn't selling Makelele. Perez' fault was not replacing Makelele with the same type of player. You can't replace a DM with Beckham and expect not to get overrun in the middle. If Barca permantly replaced Pique with Alex Song in defense we would also lose our shape. That doesn't mean Pique is an unreplaceable legend CB.

Makelele's reputation stems from the ignorance of Perez and the ignorance of Premier League pundits. Very little by his own greatness. In the modern game he'd be a De Jong copy.

 

[antonnn]

So all the guys at Real Madrid who acknowledged his importance are also ignorant? Guys like Zidane, Hierro and McManaman? They played with him, they knew how good he was. Not all that many people really call him a legend anyway tbh, that's just my opinion and while there are people who did really like him during his playing days, when legends of football are brought up his name normally isn't. I don't think enough people rate him as a legend for him to be called overrated. I feel more people underrate him if anything, barring the English media, who should be ignored anyway.