Good Player Guide #6 - Samir Nasri

Samir Nasri

(Arsenal / France)

As a gifted young French footballer of Algerian descent playing in an attacking-midfield role, it was perhaps to be expected that certain elements of the press would waste no time in dubbing Samir Nasri ´the new Zinedine Zidane.´ Such comparisons are of course unfair, but it says a lot about the early promise shown by the 21-year old during his time at Olympique Marseille that people have been quick to elevate him amidst such esteemed company.

A product of the streets of La Gavotte Peyret, a gritty suburb in Northern Marseille, it was in this tough environment playing alongside kids far older than himself that Nasri´s obvious talent was born. ´He used to play in our games and would get stuck in with the biggest of us´ his cousin Farid recalls. ´Technically though he was by far the best´ adds a friend of Farid who also grew up in the area. His experiences of this rough-and-ready art of street football, the game in its purest form, taught him a lot but while this honing of skills took place Nasri also toughened up mentally. While keen to get involved when it came to football he was less interested in the other, perhaps less beneficial social activities of his peers. ´He matured very quickly. When we were older we would go out at night, but he would stay indoors working. Before joining Marseille´s academy he was doing very well at school,´ offers another childhood friend.

At Marseille, Nasri soon established himself as a talent that could cut it at professional level thanks to the string of successes he enjoyed as a junior player coming up through the academy, and by the age of seventeen he was deemed good enough to make his senior debut. This came during the 2004/2005 season, a campaign in which he made twenty-four appearances and scored one goal. To be relied on to this extent while just seventeen at a big club in one of Europe´s top leagues demonstrates the enormous amounts of belief the hierarchy at the south-eastern French club placed in his prodigious talent. Such faith no doubt derived in part from his headline-grabbing performances for the France U-17s team, with whom he helped deliver the nation´s first European Championship crown at this age group in 2005. Elected Player of the Tournament, Nasri also scored the winning goal.

For Marseille, Samir Nasri was often deployed in the ´number 10´ role, that of creator and provider for his teammates, though he can also play on the wing from where he likes to cut inside. His stylish technique and astute vision quickly made him a fans´ favourite at the Stade Velodrome, and he is considered throughout France as one of the country´s great hopes for the future. In 2006/2007 he was named French Young Player of the Season, pipping Karim Benzema to the post, and in 2007/2008, the last of his four years representing Marseille at senior level, he was joint leader of Ligue Une´s assists table. He has also broken through into the French national team and was part of Raymond Domenech´s EURO 2008 squad.

After 160 appearances for Marseille (a remarkable tally for a player so young) Arsenal decided they had seen enough potential in the attacking midfielder to warrant forking out a fee rumoured to be £14.3 million for his services.

Samir Nasri seems in many ways to fit Arsene Wenger´s prototype for midfielders perfectly. All feigns and shimmies, he is effortlessly comfortable with the ball at his feet and has a good eye for a pass. His playing style is comparable to that of Aliaksandr Hleb´s in the way that they both peskily twist and turn constantly in order to try and create space, but Nasri offers more pace and a tendency to shoot much more often than the Belarusian. To his advantage he is also stronger and more tenacious. He may need to toughen up slightly in order to adapt to the rigours of the English Premier League, but for now it appears Arsenal have bought themselves a player with the mentality and skill to develop into a fine player.