A football rebel’s own goal? William Gallas
It is no secret that the highest levels of football feed not just on talent but on those who are ruthless attention seekers. So what happens if you have the talent, but lack the ego to push yourself peristently to the front? For an object lesson we can do no better than look at Willam Gallas.
Gallas is the international defender who has so infuriated Chelsea, his former club, that their management has monstered him in public, accusing him of threatening to score an own goal.
Bunkered down at Arsenal now, Gallas denies the claim, but the antagonism raises questions about the man who was very much a linchpin of Chelsea’s Premiership-winning squad last season.
Born on the same day as Thierry Henry in 1977, Gallas grew up in the Parisian suburb of Villeneuve-la-Garenne. At 13 his parents returned to Guadeloupe but allowed Gallas to take up a place at the French national academy for young footballers — on condition that he succeeded.
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At weekends he stayed with his uncle and missed his parents and, as his peer Henry shone, he struggled and was labelled a rebel. What he lacked, it seemed, was not intelligence or talent, but rather the emotional resilience that any brutal industry requires of its players.
His luck turned in 2001 when he was signed by Chelsea for £6.2 million and while Gallas’s skills were always admired, at the same time there was a growing sense of disquiet as he became frustrated about being constantly asked to play in different positions. Being shunted around stopped him playing with consistency, he grumbled; he wasn’t paid enough, he deserved more recognition, — and he made it clear that he intended to leave Chelsea.
The grumbling might suggest arrogance but while Gallas is unquestionably an awkward customer, he is also known to be a man of principle. When his team mate Claude Makelele recently offered him a week on his luxury yacht, Gallas declined because he had already decided to leave the club. “I don’t want to be living in the clouds and crash,” he once said. “I keep my feet on the ground so that when my career has finished, I won’t have far to fall.”
The handful of interviewers who have met him have found him shy, inaccessible and as unobtrusive as you can be when you arrive in a shiny Mercedes and wear diamond earrings. But he is popular with team mates and undoubtedly a man with pride. That seems to be at the root of the spat with Chelsea — the demands for more money and recognition are pleas to be valued, rather than the attention-seeking posturing of a self-aware superstar.