LUDOVIC GIULY, THE BARCELONA winger, scored the 100th goal of his professional career last weekend but it is a chance he missed that has haunted him this week: it came in last season’s European Cup final, when the Frenchman was the captain of AS Monaco against FC Porto, who were coached by José Mourinho. After three minutes, Giuly broke the offside trap and burst clear on goal. But he got the ball stuck under his feet allowing Vítor Baía, the Porto goalkeeper, to scramble it to safety.
With that went Monaco’s best chance of the game, and their hopes were as good as over when Giuly limped out of the action 20 minutes later. “It was a hamstring injury and came at a terrible time for me,” he said. “It was my last appearance for Monaco and it was a shame to leave after that performance.”
The chance to get one over on Mourinho comes on Wednesday night at the Nou Camp. It has arrived quicker than expected, and at the perfect time for Giuly, who missed much of January with a thigh strain. “My injuries have cleared up and I am feeling much fitter,” he said. “I can’t wait for the Chelsea game.”
Giuly left Monaco last summer to help to ease the club’s debt, but he was also frustrated at the lack of passion for football in the Principality. “After the (quarter-final) match when we beat Real Madrid, there was just about nothing happening in the streets,” he said. “It was a bit sad.” He’s come to the right place for passion in joining Barcelona. “Here, people throw themselves under your car. It was a shock at first but now I am used to it. When I was weighing up my move, I really wanted to discover the hot atmospheres you get when you play in front of 70,000 fans. I wanted to play alongside great players and to prove I’m good enough.”
This desire for recognition stems from youth games when he was always overlooked. He is 5ft 3in and the smallest player in the European Cup. “When scouts only signed the big guys, I understood I would have to work twice as hard,” he said. “Some people make their size a complex, but for me it’s always been my strength; now the bigger the guy I’m up against, the better. I might not get my head on the ball all that often, but when it comes to acceleration and movement, I have a big advantage.”
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He was discovered aged 18 at Lyons by Jean Tigana, who put him in the senior squad after he scored twice and then nutmegged Manuel Amoros, the former France defender, in a practice match. Tigana later signed him for Monaco. Giuly was in the France squad two years later but made little impact and was disappointed when Roger Lemerre, the coach, called him “Dominique”, the name of his father, a former goalkeeper. Things improved when Giuly was made captain at Monaco after the appointment of Didier Deschamps as coach in summer 2001. “It was like a turning point,” he said. “I used to moan about training and whine about having a massage. I soon cut that out.”
The responsibility suited him and Giuly embodied the team’s effervescent spirit under Deschamps. When he was runner-up to Didier Drogba, now the Chelsea forward, for France’s player of the year award, he insisted the team deserved credit. “Our campaign was not the story of one man, of one hero; it was the whole squad,” he said.
That squad fell short in the French league, finishing third, as well as in Europe. Had Giuly not missed in Gelsenkirchen last May, it could have been a different story. Don’t expect him to repeat the error against Chelsea.