One of Mathieu Valbuena’s favorite phrases is “je fais te faire viver”, or, in English, “I make you come live”, or, in another context, “I’m going to make you experience life.”
The phrase also sums up a way of life, possibly because it’s the way he enjoys life to the fullest. In large part, Valbuena has experienced mostly … everything. You can hear him recalling that “I’ve competed in major clubs in my career while experiencing different cultures.”
It’s true. From France to Russia, back home again, then to Turkey, afterwards in Greece, Cyprus and then back to France. Next September will mark his 41st birthday, but who would bet on him calling it a day in his professional football career?
“Usually, a football career lasts 12 to 15 years. I’ve reached 20 years, and I’m still going–it’s a journey of happiness for me all the way,” he has said many a time, puffing his chest out with pride.
From salesman in a sports shop to the tops of Europe, Mathieu Valbuena made his dreams come true
The nickname
This “small bundle” of football greatest, with an equally great heart and soul, earned an interesting nickname as a youngster.
No one remembers if it was his friends or his grandmother who coined the name “the little bicycle”, which follows him to this day. As he describes it, he earned the name, because “I always moved my feet fast and was keen on sports”.
On a darker note, back then the term “bullying” was not widespread, and Mathieu was teased for his height, as he would reach a mere 1.65 meters in adulthood.
He wasn’t aiming at a career in the …NBA, however, and with his skill and perseverance eventually made his way up the professional football ladder, all the way up to the French national team. He played with Les Bleus for five years, earning 52 caps and scoring eight goals.
No bad for this “sparkplug” in the midfield, who could unlock any opposing team’s defense, dishing out assists before even the staunchest resistance. For instance, one afternoon in the western Greek city of Agrinio, at the age of 36, and while in the process of losing his balance, he delivered a pass to El Arabi, who scored a goal that would go down in the Reds’ history. “Football was not a quiet river,” you hear him say when he recalls his long journey.
Has his whole life been a “game” though? Not at all!
As a teen, he worked as a salesman in a sportswear shop, while at the age of nine a swimming pool accident cost him 50 stitches in his shin. That was when he first had second thoughts about engaging in sports again.
Fast forward to December 23, 2010, and the now big-time football star is at the wheel of a Lamborghini Murciélago, driving through torrential rain to his parents’ home to spend Christmas with them.
A road accident leaves the supercar “totaled”, but Valbuena escapes without injury. He survived, as he continues to do to this day, regardless of the setbacks or anything else he’s encountered along the way.
Of course, Greece has been a major chapter in Valbuena’s life. He came to the country at a relatively late stage in his career and after a spell at Fenerbahce, arriving in the summer of 2019 at the age of 35.
Many people doubted his motives in what was perceived as the “twilight” of his career. Few were aware, though, of the “flame” of ambition within the pint-sized Mathieu. He donned the red-and-white jersey and honored it like few others, recording 150 appearances, 18 goals and 43 assists.
“I’ve made more assists in my career than goals, and people say I’m an individualist. The way I play is proof of my team spirit and the way I think,” the player they call a “poet of passing” said.
Olympiacos: a new chapter
His acquaintance with Olympiacos was as if by prior coincidence.
It’s December 6, 2011, the last day of the Champions League group stage, and Olympiacos is playing with a huge motivation to win. Ernesto Valverde’s team can punch its ticket into the round of “16”, provided it beats Arsenal at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium. The Gunners have already qualified for the next round.
But in sport, there are no guarantees.
If Olympiacos wins, the only possible scenario for its elimination from the next round will be if Marseille beats a Jurgen Klopp-managed Dortmund in Westphalen the same evening.
Dortmund, in fact, go up 2-0, while Olympiacos cruises to a 3-1 victory over Arsenal at home.
However, fans now tuning in to the game in Germany find out that Marseilles has managed to equalize in the 85th minute with a goal by André Ayew. Two minutes later, a “daredevil” of a player with the number 28 on his back did the unbelievable. He started from the left side, passed every opponent who tried to check him and with his right foot achieved an epic comeback. His name? Mathieu Valbuena.
When he was in a good position for a shot, he never shied away, although he was even more lethal as a passer and player-maker.
According to legend, years later on May 27, 2019, as thousands of Olympiacos fans gathered in Piraeus’ Alexandras Square to see Valbuena, the season’s “bombshell” signing, in person, Evangelos Marinakis reminded him of the Dortmund game.
“Yes, Mr. President, I deprived Olympiacos of that qualification, but I will bring it back,” he said, and he meant it.
He kept his word. Valbuena celebrated three league titles and one Cup during his time with Olympiacos. In 2020, his first year with the Piraeus team and a season in which they won the Double, he was sensational, scoring nine goals and amassing 23 assists in just 42 appearances. So three championships with his beloved Marseille and three with Olympiacos.
“I won’t forget the first championship, the one we won during Covid, with empty stadiums. We were celebrating, people outside or in front of their televisions and me with a bottle of my favorite champagne. I watered the field with it and then everyone else,” he now recalls, full of satisfaction that he made his mark here, too.
Living a second youth in Greece
Mathieu Valbuena may have intended to stay only a year at Olympiacos, but he ended up posting four years of brilliant play. Every year he signed a new one-year contract, and every season he renewed it before the end of the season, in March, in fact.
The Frenchman experienced a “second youth” in Greece. With his Olympiacos, he re-emerged on the European football landscape with a vengeance. He achieved greatness in a special place, Piraeus, which “reminds me of Marseille”, as he says.
He left behind the affronts he heard when he first put on a Lyon jersey against his beloved “Blues”, and after leaving Russia, when he said, “I felt they didn’t want me back”.
Moreover, he has finally put a sex tape scandal behind him, in which Valbuena had accused a group of blackmailing him over cellphone footage showing intimate moments. The case shocked French public opinion, and had involved Karim Benzema as one of those charged.
As one can see, the “football life” of Mathieu Valbuena—who is currently playing with Athens Kallithea–is literally a book waiting to be written. Even better, it may well have chapters that go beyond the purely sporting world…