If you asked pundits to come up with a list of the best players from the time period of 2000–05, there’s a decent chance that Claude Makelele’s name wouldn’t rank very high compared to some of the usual suspects. That being said, it is tough to argue otherwise that few from that era had greater influence on the game than the Frenchman. He was a key part of some of the best club sides from that time period at Real Madrid and Chelsea, and it is noteworthy that his exit from Madrid in the summer of 2003 helped start a drought (by Madrid standards) where their next major trophy didn’t come until they finished above Barcelona to win La Liga in 2006–07 (2003 could also be seen as the point where Madrid’s obsession with the Galacticos project became a problem).
Makelele’s influence on football could be seen through the role he managed to carve out during his time in the Premier League, The Makelele Role. There have been numerous explainers on what the role entailed, so I won’t reiterate what others have already said. What adds to Makelele’s intrigue is that you could argue that we saw two different versions of him within that five year stretch, partly due to him realizing that extending his career meant he needed to make some changes to how he operated.
Coming into these viewings, I’m always interested in one or two things with each player I analyze. With Zinedine Zidane, I was curious about his usage and whether there was something of a diminishing returns effect going on towards the teams overall attack. With Roy Keane, I was wondering how much his game changed from the mid 1990’s to the end of the decade, as well as trying to figure out how much of a net positive he was offensively in addition to his noteworthy aggresiveness. My interest in writing about Makelele was almost entirely from an attacking point of view, because even with the limited knowledge beforehand, I was fairly confident that the accolades he’s garnered for his defensive work would be confirmed via the tape. For this exercise, the film I chose to watch came from his time at Real Madrid along with the first season at Chelsea, given his importance in that first season under Jose Mourinho and how that helped Chelsea become a dominant side in 2004–05.
Scouting Report:
As mentioned earlier, what I was focusing most on with Makelele was his passing. If anything, given the relative lack of discussion about him as a passer, I prepared myself to be impressed with him in this department and come from this thinking he was greatly unappreciated on-ball. Given his own role and the sheer amount of attacking talent he played alongside with (especially during his time at Madrid), I was not expecting to see a slew of extravagant Hollywood passes from the tape. What I was honing in on regarding his passing was just how crisp and efficient he was as the initial creator during buildup, and whether he could make snap decisions without much of a fuss, even when dealing with opposition pressure. The film was less positive on Makelele than I had hoped for, particularly when he was at La Liga, and I do think he had his struggles as a on-ball creator. To be sure, he wasn’t horrific on-ball as he did show to have decent touch. His best passing moments were a bit similar to Roy Keane in that he helped the club moved the chains through unspectacular passes between the lines.
However as mentioned earlier, the film was at best lukewarm, and he was rather fortunate that playing on really high end squads meant this wasn’t too big a problem on the overall attack. He would sometimes have issues getting the ball out of his feet in a timely manner which would invite pressure from the opponent and reduce his option to almost nil, having to settle for simple lateral passes to nearby teammates. His ability to hit diagonal passes or just simply switch the play was okay but nothing necessarily to write home about (this did get better to some extent during his Chelsea days). He also had a tendency to miss out on attempting potentially high value passes and instead settle for something that was less promising.
On stuff that was more on the margins, Makelele provided value when he was with Madrid, though it’s fair to argue if that helped mitigate the concerns about his passing. He had a good interpretation of space, whether it be instances where he’d drag his marker closer to the wings to open up the middle, or getting himself forward into open space off-ball as he was more adventurous in terms of forward movement than at Chelsea. Though he wasn’t necessarily the type of midfielder to get the ball and immediately make long solo carries deep into the opposition’s final third, Makelele did possess impressive wiggle and overall lateral movement to make himself rather elusive in the middle third. He was in many ways a high level escape artist rather than a long distance ball carrier. He was also savvy in being able to draw fouls through shielding the ball and selling contact by falling over.
Given the change in role from being a more forward venturing midfielder at Madrid to a pure sitting one during his first season at Chelsea, there were some changes to how he behaved on offense. His off-ball movement was tailored towards getting himself open between the opposition’s attack and midfield so the backline always had a passing outlet they can deliver the ball towards. This was helped considerably by Chelsea being an outlier in how they deployed three central midfielders during a time where the Premier League was still beholden to some version of 4–4–2. I do think that his passing was steadier at Chelsea, as he had less instances of the ball being stuck in his feet than at Madrid. The passing repertoire was also expanded a bit to compliment the short distance passing through the center, particularly with more aerial attempts.
The real selling point with Makelele, especially during that 2000–03 stretch, was defensively. He was in many ways the poster child for being the type of midfielder that could do the defensive work of two individuals at once. Normally I wouldn’t point to a YouTube compilation as evidence towards a larger point, but this is one of the rare times where I think a highlight reel could be seen as a good source of information as it does show to some extent what made Makelele so special on that end (the first portion of the video is dedicated to his defensive work).
Makelele’s timing was almost scarily good, and it wasn’t just limited to his slide tackles, as he knew when to press up on opponents and box them in so they couldn’t exit their own third properly. This was helped by the strong chemistry he had when playing alongside Ivan Helguera in a midfield pivot. His timing and instincts also showed when trying to anticipate for potential interceptions. Though he didn’t possess blazing speed over long distances, he was catlike in how he would constantly be on his toes and know when he could close down short distances in a blink of an eye, especially when he had to sidestep laterally. It was ridiculous just how many times Makelele would be able to dispossess an opponent with a standing tackle and cleanly get possession in a smooth motion. When defending against 1–2 combinations where his marker was the one to initiate with the pass, he would use his hands to maintain close distance and eventually break up the play. As well, he had a tendency to have a horizontal stance when defending potential transition attacks. When executed properly, those attacks fizzled out into essentially nothing.
At Chelsea, Makelele’s defensive work was more subtle than it was at Madrid as the sitting midfielder of a three man midfield. He was more concerned with pinging around in his own third when needed to plug up holes, or covering space on the flanks if the fullbacks pushed up field. He would still use his gifts as a tackler when needed, but he didn’t have to gamble or stretch himself to the same extent as he previously did in La Liga.
Analysis
There’s the famous quote from Florentino Perez after Makelele’s departure to Chelsea in 2003, which basically amounts to outright skepticism about the detrimental effects that could come from losing Makelele, with Perez noting (among other things) what he thought was lackluster passing from the midfield that could easily be replaced. I actually am a bit more sympathetic than most towards that viewpoint after going through the film from his 2000–03 stretch. In comparison to someone like Roy Keane who wasn’t a flashy passer but rather efficient, Makelele struggles somewhat in that light. Though he did get better once he left for the Premier League, I don’t know if it was good enough for those quotes to no longer have that slight bit of truth in them.
Taking that into account, I still think that the overall thinking from Perez was wrong even if he may have had more of a point than given credit for. This goes back towards the idea of how portable an individual can be as you increase the overall talent level around them, and whether the player can maintain or even perform better in those environments. In that respect, Makelele was probably the best example for the strong benefits that come with being exceedingly scalable. Sure, I think it’s fairly reasonable to have some qualms about Makelele’s impact offensively, but he was the perfect fit for what his clubs needed. Zidane’s quote about comparing Makelele to a car engine is probably one of the more apt descriptions of what made him so important. He was an outlier defensive talent, and that helped him scale up so well to compliment the creative talents of Zidane, Luis Figo and later on Frank Lampard at Chelsea. I suspect that if it was possible to have publicly available event level data from that era to create all-in-one impact metrics, Makelele would rank among the best defensively in part due to having so much value as someone who could consistently put out potential fires.
The comparisons between Makelele and N’Golo Kante have been made by many and to some extent it’s understandable, particularly the catlike quickness both of them possess that helps them essentially be everywhere when needed defensively (I do think that on offense, Kante is considerably more dynamic than Makelele was). Another comparison that might be more suitable would be with Lucas Torreira, particularly the version we saw at Sampdoria. Torreira was probably better as a creator given his ability to hit vertical passes, but the gap isn’t anything to write home about. Both had a bit of press resistance because of how they could escape tight spaces in their own way, but weren’t necessarily dynamic ball carriers. Particularly when compared to version of Makelele we saw at Madrid, Torreira carried a similar level of aggressiveness defensively and was willing to take chances, though he obviously wasn’t as successful as Makelele was. It’ll be interesting to see if Torreira could land himself a large role on a top 4 side within the big 5 leagues, whether that ends up being at Arsenal or elsewhere, given that players who are more specialists might have a tougher time in today’s era than in the first half of the 2000's.
Claude Makelele is rightly regarded for being a generational talent in terms of his defensive prowess, whether it was him playing a more proactive role in La Liga or his more calculated work in England. His passing was much more of a mixed bag at Madrid, though that did improve somewhat at Chelsea, and he was consistent with his off-ball work and sub-elite levels of escape dribbling. It just so happened that because he got to ply his trade for two clubs during those five years that were seamless fits for his skillset, his passing concerns didn’t end up mattering all that much and he ended up scaling extremely well, which is what Perez ended up getting rightfully criticized for when allowing him to leave.
Previous Profiles:
#1: Zinedine Zidane
#2: Roy Keane
