Mikel a joué avec le Nigéria auj, petit rapport en anglais d´un fan de MU:
JOHN OBI MIKEL - A Report
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He was only on the pitch for 40 minutes. It´s not enough time to judge a player. But for those 40 minutes, John Obi Mikel was superb. One goal and one assist in a 2-0 win doesn´t tell half the story.
I´m well and truly sick of the circus around this lad. It had got the stage where I just thought sod it - as long as they paid us hefty compensation, Chelsea could have him.
But having seen him play, I want us to fight to try and keep him. He´s so good that even if we keep him under duress for a while and it doesn’t work out, his talent is bound to shine and his financial stock certain to increase.
With practically every touch he oozed class. He´s not a Vieira or a Keane - although he´s a big tall lad, he doesn´t really get stuck in, and the odd time he attempted a tackle, it was clumsy of Scholeseque proportions.
But from his very first touch, Obi Mikel took control. The 18 year old began orchestrating the play for Nigeria with such assurance and aplomb that you’d have sworn he was a 30 year old veteran of the game.
From the moment he came on, every corner and set-piece was left to him. The rest of the team was always eager to feed him the ball at any opportunity - presumably because it was blatantly obvious to them that he’d make far more use of it than they could.
There are some players - like Hoddle, like Bergkamp, like Platini - who never seem to rush anything they do. They seem to have all the time in the world on the ball, as time seems to slow to the beat of their feet. Each pass is performed with ridiculous ease, and they seem in perfect control of the ball’s tragectory from the moment it leaves their feet.
John Obi Mikel is just a kid and doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as those players (so he isn’t). But he just seems so in control of everything he does on that pitch. His passing game was absolutely outstanding. Short and long, it was very reminiscent of a young Beckham or Scholes – inch perfect, perfectly weighted and totally assured.
It was not only the quality of his passing that impressed (and some of his long raking passes were sublime), but his vision and choice of pass. On the ball, he always seemed to pick the right option – sometimes the short pass to the man in space, sometimes the clever defence splitting through-ball. And nearly every pass came off.
The kid’s not especially fast and doesn’t seem to have developed a hell-for-leather work ethic yet, but his technique was far and away on another level to anyone else on the pitch. Most of the talent originating from Africa seems to be labeled (often unfairly) for it’s physical strength, speed, and general tremendous athleticism.
This boy proves that Africa can produce a player with technique and elegance of a rarefied level. He may never end up fulfilling his potential, but this boy seems to have real potential.
He may ruin his chances of becoming a brilliant footballer with the greed and short-sighted petulance that are endemic in today’s game, he may not. But he’s got talent to waste this lad.
I just hope he makes the most of it at United
