Almost everything that seems to be a trend in today’s football has already happened to Florian Lejeune (Paris; 33 years old). He broke both cruciates in 2019, he bought City as one of his first investments when he was about to acquire Girona in 2015 and he was tempted by Saudi Arabia in 2022. But instead of the desert, he chose Vallecas, where he is the player of field that has been played the most last season and this one. He arrived in the neighborhood without ever setting foot as a rival and was fascinated by it: “It’s spectacular. The atmosphere, the closeness you have with the people… They help you a lot, they will never whistle at you. Never. They give you terrible confidence. Also, I know that rivals don’t like coming to Vallecas, and I like that. Then you say, let’s try to screw them up a little and sink them,” he says in the club’s sports city two days before Real Madrid has to make the trip to the south of the capital this Saturday (9:00 p.m., Movistar).
The visit brings him the guy who has infuriated him the most. His teammates were alarmed last year when Rüdiger collided with him and then whispered something in his ear: “I don’t want to get into controversy. I’m going to talk only about the defensive aspect with him; not from what he told me,” he clarifies. “It’s very heavy… It pinches your nipples. I came home and my wife told me, what happened to you? And I tell him, this one in the corners is very heavy, very heavy…”
They were no longer the suffering types who met in May 2019 at the Villa Stuart clinic in Rome, having recently undergone surgery on their left knees. Rüdiger, of the meniscus, and Lejeune, of the cruciate, shortly after recovering from a tear in the other knee. Then he played for Newcastle. “When I came back, my first league game in England was against Chelsea, where he played. “I asked him for his shirt and we changed them.” He still keeps it.
It is one of his memories of what perhaps could have been. “A lot of people tell me I could have had a much better career. I think so too. But the bad luck of the two crusaders stopped my progress a bit. But I am also lucky to be able to continue playing and enjoying football.”
With that second break in which he met Rüdiger, a takeoff that Manchester City had glimpsed four years before ran aground. “That story is very good,” he recalls with a smile. “I was at Girona, in the Second Division, after the first year. I was in the summer, on vacation, and Quique Cárcel called me [director deportivo del Girona]. I don’t know how many missed calls… I don’t know what’s going on, usually he doesn’t even call me… And he says to me: ‘Flo, why don’t you pick up my cell phone? I’m calling you, it’s very important.’ And I say: ‘What’s wrong? Is there a problem?’ And he tells me: ‘City is going to buy a part of Girona, and they want to sign you.’ And I tell him: ‘Quique, I’m on vacation, leave me alone, this smells bad.’
But it was real. They wanted him to leave him on loan where he was, and he calculates that this way he at least ensures that he receives a somewhat higher salary. “They told me that Guardiola was going to go next year and I was going to be there, that he likes my player profile. “I speak with the brother, Pere, and with the seconds.” He stays at Girona, finishes as the best defender in the Second Division and City summons him for the preseason in Asia. But he sees that he would not have a place to play and that he does not want to continue in the Second Division. “I call Txiki [Begiristain] and I tell him: ‘Sorry, but I want to go to Eibar, I want to play in the First Division.’ And he says to me: ‘Are you sure? Maybe you’re wrong. You have to go little by little.’ And I told him: ‘If I’m good, then you’re going to buy me again.’ He finished tenth with Mendilibar. “And Newcastle signed me.”
There he met Rafa Benítez, perhaps the coach who has had the greatest impact on him: “He was a tactical patient. We did a lot of tactical work, how to position ourselves, how to defend, the moments of transition, when five or four against three come to you… Then on the field I said: ‘This is what we did.’ And it comes out. “I improved a lot.”
He also had one of his incredible moments there shortly after his second torn cruciate: he came off the bench losing 2-0 against Everton at Goodison and scored two goals in 102 seconds, one of them a bicycle kick. His rival from this Saturday sat on the other bench: “Ancelotti has to remember me, I think so,” he says, amused.
