the times | Wednesday February 22 2017 1GM 67 Football Sport ‘I was better off picking up litter than youngsters shut away in academies’

AITOR ALCALDE COLOMER/GETTY IMAGES As Adil Rami prepares Watch out for Ben Yedder, says Rami to take on Leicester City Adil Rami says that Wissam Ben with Seville he tells Yedder, his fellow Frenchman, is the Seville player who poses the biggest James Gheerbrant how threat to Leicester City. Ben Yedder, right, a striker, is 5ft 7in and comes his upbringing from Sarcelles, the same suburb of has given him Paris as Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez. He has represented France at futsal, an the hunger indoor small-sided version of football with to succeed a strong emphasis on technical skill. Rami warns: “The dil Rami fell through the Leicester defence cracks. Before he won Ligue is very tall and 1 with Lille, before he lifted strong and the Europa League with Wissam can ASeville, before he played in pose them technical two European Championships for problems because France, he was one of the kids who he is small, well never made it. He was 20 years old, built and very fast.” working for the city council in his hometown of Fréjus and playing for the local amateur side at weekends. At an the French population are of that age when 99.9 per cent of professional ethnic background and given the footballers have already been importance of the tournament as a discovered, his ascent to the pinnacle of unifying moment for France. The issue the game began, quite literally, in the of French-born north African gutter. footballers is a vexed public debate in Among various menial jobs that he France: many, such as Leicester’s Riyad did for the council — he also worked as Mahrez, choose to represent their a mechanic and scrubbed graffiti off country of parentage; some feel that walls — Rami was employed as a litter- those who do choose to represent picker, trudging the streets in a high-vis France, such as and vest, using a metal grabber to pick up — both overlooked for cans, crisp packets and cigarette butts. Euro 2016 — are unfairly treated by the Rami tells his story with no trace of French Football Federation. bitterness. “My mother did everything Rami’s parents are Moroccan and he to find me a job,” he says. “She had four says that the country’s federation called children all to herself. My father him “15, 20 times”. He says: “People say, wandered the streets — he couldn’t ‘Why did you choose France? Why keep off drugs. Every day I workedfrom didn’t you choose Morocco?’ But no five in the morning to 12.30 and, in the one can ask me to choose between my afternoon, I went to my football club in brothers and my sisters. I chose France Fréjus. For me it was simply a pleasure, because I grew up in France, it was not a job.” France that made me dream — Zidane, Rami’s life changed when, one day, a the 1998 World Cup and all that. The scout from Lille called and invited him way I see it, I’m representing a country for a one-week trial for the club’s that I love, Morocco, within the French secondteam.At 20,Rami,acentreback, national team.” was far too old for what was effectively A highly intelligent and thoughtful a youth team made up of 16 and man who describes himself as a 17-year-olds, but the club wanted to “believing” Muslim, Rami is not blind bring in someone with a bit of hard- to political developments in his home knocks grit to toughen up the cosseted country and abroad. He has not been academy kids. afraid to weigh in on an issue dividing “I did my one-week trial and at the Late developer: Rami, who worked for the council and played amateur football as a youth, below, did not join a professional France — the alleged beating and rape end they said to me, ‘We’re going to club until the age of 20. He is now a key part of a Seville side that is challenging for domestic and European honours by Parisian police of a black youth keep you on for a year, just to see how worker called Théo. “They piss on us you develop, because you haven’t been went running with us, worked out with professional — I knew I had that pressure of wondering whether without even making us believe it’s to an academy and it’s a bit late for us, played with us in training. accomplished something huge which you’re going to succeed or not. When I rain,” he tweeted. you,’” Rami recalls. Rather than rush Sometimes, there were flashpoints — very few people in the world would see young footballers sign professional “Politics is something that hurts me,” out and buy a flash car, his first act was you have no idea. He’d put a tackle in, have been able to do. From that terms, I think, ‘I hope for his sake he he says with a pained expression. “I am to ask the council for a year’s sabbatical we’d tackle him, and sometimes it moment on, I no longer had any limits stays professional.’ Because, when a little bit interested in it but it hurts me. so that he could return to his job if ended in a punch-up. He is very, very in my head. I wanted to take that’s all you know, the world of Throughout the world, there are things things did not work out. strong. He runs all the time, and if we everything that the game the pros, the money, the that I don’t understand, things that I will After eight months of his contract, ever did a fitness test, I had to wait until had to offer, my appetite girls...” he trails off. “The never understand. And no matter what Rami was calledup to trainwith the first the last 200 metres to overtake him, was insatiable.” life I knew was very far you think, there is always a debate. And team as several of the regular starters because otherwise he would elbow me On the creeping from that. It was very insuchcases,Iamnotgoingto wastemy were away on international duty. off.” academisation of hard, so hard I don’t energy on it. But, without getting , the then Lille manager — If Puel wanted his players lean and football, Rami — think I could even bogged down in the debates, sometimes now the head coach of Southampton — hungry, with fire in their eyes, he found one of the handful begin to explain. I will say what I think.” was impressed enough to ask Rami to his archetype in Rami who, as the lone ofelitefootballersto “That’s whytodayI Rami feels at home in Seville, he return the next day. By the end of the latecomer in a squad full of academy have escaped the invest a lot of money explains, because it is not a flashy place. week he was in the squad for the trip to products, was ravenous to prove trawl net that plucks in property. I’m very, There are no “footballers’ clubs” or Saint-Étienne. The next weekend, he himself. It is a hunger that has not left players from very careful with “footballers’ restaurants”. Instead the started against Auxerre. him, even now, aged 31, playing for a normality at school money because I know Seville players eat tapas and drink beer To English observers, Puel can seem Seville team three points off the top of age and puts them on a that life. I’m 31 years old in the same places as the locals. Sedate like a quiet, grey, inscrutable figure, but and who host Leicester City in conveyor belt that will lead and I waited 31 years to have Mercedes and BMWs far outnumber Rami describes him as a cross between the Champions League round of 16 this only a small percentage to a wife and kids. In the academies, lurid sports cars in the training-ground a competitive psychopath and a evening. stardom — is fascinating. “Now I think you meet a girl, you are not in love, you car park. surrogate father. “Claude Puel likes “I arrived into the world of maybe I was luckier than the kids who have children at 20 — it’s often like this That sort of normality is a happy players who are hungry, who run all professional football, I didn’t have the came through the academies,” he says. — then you get divorced.” medium for a man who knows both day, never stop talking, never let their same philosophy as the others but I had “Today, it makes me gasp when I Rami was the only player of north worlds: trash and trophies, under the arms drop,” he says. “Puel himself is like a mental strength which was think of the prospect of being shut up in African origin in France’s Euro 2016 axle and atop the table. Scrubbing that — he’s a little bit crazy. incomparable,” he says. “The fact that I an academy at 15 years old to learn squad, a status of some significance graffiti off a wall and leaving his own “At Lille, he did everything we did. He had worked for a living then turned football, football, football and to have considering that around 10 per cent of indelible mark.