N’Zonzi thriving in Europe’s elite
THE usual suspects lead the way in UEfa’s Champions League passing stats: Paris saint- Germain’s Marco Verratti, Dortmund’s Julian Weigl and Bayern’s Thiago alcantara are the top three.
and then in fifth place there’s the fella who used to play for Blackburn and stoke, steven N’Zonzi.
ahead of tonight’s Champions League meeting with Leicester, he fondly recalls Tony Pulis signing him as a 6ft 3in destroyer, and Mark Hughes then recognising his other qualities and building a passing team around him.
N’Zonzi is in exalted Champions League company now and he has performed so well on the big stage that Juventus, Barcelona and Manchester City have all been linked with signing him this summer.
‘The fans were really good at stoke. It was one of the best atmospheres in the Premier League,’ he says. ‘I used to love England. I lived near Manchester and felt great. But I love seville too. The sun makes the difference. It’s amazing to wake up to clear blue skies.’
Would he leave it all behind to go back to England? ‘ The most important thing is the challenge. You are not on holiday,’ he says.
‘If that were not the case I would go and play in Miami or a top resort. It is a really short career so if there is a good challenge then you make compromises. You get plenty of years to enjoy the sunshine after you retire.’
We can take that as a yes then.
But how did he get away in the first place? ‘They didn’t have to beat other clubs to get me,’ N’Zonzi says of sevilla’s £7million purchase in 2015.
Not everyone was blind to his talents. sam allardyce coached N’Zonzi at Blackburn and during his brief spell as England boss he unsuccessfully tried to get the french-born player international clearance to play for the Three Lions.
‘It would have been a great opportunity but it didn’t happen,’ N’Zonzi says.
N’Zonzi is very much the product of a mix of playing styles and coaches — Big sam to Jorge sampaoli via Pulis and Hughes — and he’s grateful to have worked with all four.
‘It was harder for me to adapt to a team coached by sam allardyce or Tony Pulis because my game in france was not physical, I didn’t tackle. But I worked at it,’ he says.‘You can’t completely change your physical possibilities but you can improve. I got stronger and quicker.’
Now 28, he has adapted throughout his career. first to the demands of English football, then to the passing game Hughes wanted stoke playing, then to the discipline of Unai Emery and now to the highpressing possession- based football of sampaoli.
sevilla’s effervescent No 2, Juanma Lillo, is one of Pep Guardiola’s closest friends and he will provide the glowing character reference if City need one this summer. ‘This is the guy!’ he says as he slaps N’Zonzi’s back in the car park ahead of this interview.
In terms of playing style, sevilla are similar to City. Is there a danger that Leicester will be able to pick them off on the break as they did to Guardiola’s team earlier this season? ‘The manager will show us how we can change our approach against Leicester,’ N’Zonzi says.
He also insists that there will be no complacency from sevilla. ‘We could say, “It’s Leicester, it’s going to be easier playing them than playing a bigger team”, but if they are here it is because they deserve to be here, and we are going to have to be at our very best to beat them,’ he says.
a place in the quarter-finals is the prize. It would be a new high in N’Zonzi’s career and maybe not the last.