When France coach Laurent Blanc recently told his former team-mate Bixente Lizarazu on French TV station RTL that he had “about 18 names in my head” for his 23-man squad for Euro 2012 but was prepared to leave the door open to a few wild-cards, the debate began over who would be this summer’s Pascal Chimbonda for Les Bleus. Chimbonda was a Wigan player when Raymond Domenech surprisingly picked him for his 2006 World Cup squad, where he did not play a single minute.
Would it be Lyon striker Bafetimbi Gomis, or Real Madrid centre-back Raphael Varane, tipped last week by Jose Mourinho to be “better than Blanc”? Others, like Jeremy Mathieu and Dmitri Payet, are hoping that strong end-of-season form could help them force Blanc’s hand.
But behind Karim Benzema, the quality of whose recent goals for Real Madrid’s secures his status as France’s only genuine world-class player, there is one man making a late bid for the squad whose claims are becoming harder to ignore.
Hatem Ben Arfa’s brilliant assist for Papiss Cisse, for the first goal in Newcastle’s 2-0 win over Liverpool on Sunday, was the latest in a run of impressive form over the last six weeks. Since Senegalese strikers Demba Ba and Cisse returned from African Nations Cup duty, manager Alan Pardew has paired them in a front three with Ben Arfa on the right, and one of the other two dropping to the left when out of possession.
The move has paid off: Ben Arfa scored against Arsenal and tracked back diligently; against West Brom he was even better, setting up two goals and scoring a brilliant one himself, and after his performance against Liverpool, Pardew said he is “as magic with the ball at his feet as Lionel Messi or Luis Suarez”. Mirror writer Simon Bird, perhaps more realistically, made the comparison with Peter Beardsley.
Ben Arfa’s run of form has coincided with Jeremy Menez, his fellow Clairefontaine graduate from the class of 1987 (the year of their birth, along with Benzema and Samir Nasri), suffering a major dip as Paris Saint-Germain have lost top spot in Ligue 1. While Menez was mainly used as an impact sub to cause havoc against tiring opposition late on in games, the prospect of Ben Arfa playing that role is a compelling one.
“He has to go to the Euros, France cannot do without him,” said former France international Luis Fernandez on RMC. “He can weight a pass and has this incredible ability to destroy his opponents. He can play left in the hole or on the right and he can bring something different to Blanc’s squad. He must be there.”
Fernandez is not the only one banging the drum. Pierre Menes, one of the panellists on the Canal Football Club, said: “I will go on about it every week to help him get in the squad,” while Darren Tulett, presenter on Al-Jazeera’s new French sports channel BeIn Sport, added: “He would be a much more interesting option from the bench than Menez.”
Ben Arfa deserves credit, not just for his form, but for keeping cool at Pardew’s reluctance to start him until the Arsenal game last month. In January, Ben Arfa told L’Equipe that his time recuperating from a broken leg had allowed him to learn about himself and taught him how to cope with new challenges.
“These days I’m still frustrated about not playing but instead of heading for a clash with the manager, as I would in the old days, I let it go because I know I will be the loser,” he told the paper. “I continue to work in training as hard as possible and make sure I’m ready as soon as I’m needed. I’m patient because that’s the only way to be and it will pay off in the end. My time will come. I know I’m ready physically and mentally. My approach now is more collective.”
In the same interview, Ben Arfa publicly apologised to all the French coaches he has fallen out with (there are plenty, including Alain Perrin, Eric Gerets and Didier Deschamps) and claimed that his complicated relationship with his father was at the root of his issues with authority:
“My dad was very strict and he never said he loved me. There was a lack of affection, he didn’t know how to show his feelings. I don’t blame him but all the frustration I felt from the family side, I made people outside of that group pay.”
Now though, Ben Arfa is making opposition defences pay, and his new ‘it’s all about the collective’ mindset could encourage Blanc to select him. Ben Arfa was in Blanc’s first France squad, and scored their only goal in the defeat to Norway, a powerful low drive from 20 yards out, but he has not been picked since (in fact, he has only played twice in the last four years for France). With Marvin Martin also struggling for form at relegation-threatened Sochaux this season, his case for inclusion is becoming harder for Blanc to ignore.
“He told me clearly that his aim is to go to Euro 2012,” said Youssouf Mulumbu, who was part of the West Brom midfield that failed to cope with Ben Arfa last month. “And he deserves to go after his performance in recent matches. France can’t do without him for the Euros. He would be great for the France team.”
