Last update 27 January, 2013 by Julio Muñoz
Former French international Nicolas Anelka, of 33 years, joined Juventus from Turin for a term of five months, until the end of the season, although with the possibility of an additional year, announced this Saturday the general director of the leader of the Italian league, Giuseppe Marotta.
“We had an emergency situation (en ataque), it is a short term project. We have a five-month contract with Anelka”, Marotta explained.
“The deal will be made official in a few days.”, Marotta added, in words to Sky Sport.
this very week, 'Juve’ announced that at the beginning of the next season the Spanish international attacker Fernando Llorente will join, that his contract ends in June with Athletic Bilbao and that he had already announced that he was not going to renew with the Basque team.
Anelka, who plays for the Chinese Shanghai Shenhua, landed on Saturday in the capital of Piedmont and said he was “happy to be in Turin”, speaking to Italian journalists waiting for him at the airport.
The French striker leaves China after a year's experience at the Shanghai club and would earn 1,2 million euros in these 5 months, with the possibility of renewing his contract for another year, according to the sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The Italian champion thus finds the scorer he was looking for after having sounded out the possibility of signing the Ivorian Didier Drogba, ex-Chelsea and also in Chinese football, or the Argentine from Lyon Lisandro López.
Antonio Conte, Juventus manager, he wanted a striker to compensate for the low effectiveness of the current ones, Sebastian Giovinco (6 goals in the current Serie A), Alessandro Matri (4) y Fabio Quagliarella (6).
La ‘Vecchia Signora’ is qualified for the round of 16 of the Champions League, where they will face Celtic Glasgow (12 february and 6 March).
Juventus, that is measured on Sunday against Genoa, will not count immediately with Anelka, that would need a short adaptation time.
“Anelka is not in excellent physical shape, he hasn't played games in several months, but we already knew it when we chose it”, Marotta indicated.
The French player has been training for several weeks with his training club, the Paris Saint-Germain.
Anelka is the ‘phoenix bird’ of french football, a veteran hardened in a thousand battles and who is preparing to play in his sixth league, behind those of France, England, Spain, Turkey and China.
It is Anelka's tenth club, who went through the English Arsenal (1997-1998), the real Madrid (1999-2000), Paris Saint-Germain again (2000-2002), Liverpool (2002), el Manchester City (2002-2004), hand Fenerbahce (2004-2006), the Bolton (2006-2008), Chelsea (2008-2011) and the Chinese Shenhua.
The most controversial moment of his career was in the 2010 World Cup, when he was expelled from the France camp for having insulted the then coach, Raymond Domenech.
He was then punished with 18 matches with Les Bleus and thus put an end to his career with the national team, con 69 parties and 14 targets for your country.
In his record, the title in the Eurocopa-2000 with France and in the Champions League that year with Real Madrid stand out.. He also won two English leagues and was the top scorer in the Premier League in 2009.