Olivier Giroud: Chip magnifique

Olivier Giroud

On the back of two comfortable victories for France in the recent rounds, Didier Deschamps must be feeling way more relaxed than he was a couple months ago, the quality of the team everybody knew was dormant, finally, steadily, surfacing. Super Franck is a beast on the left flank, Koscielny is taking his club form to the big stage, Benzema has finally scored for country after what seems an eon in Galactico time. Mathieu Valbuena continues to be the consistent never tiring engine, and some bloke named Samir is playing pretty decent, too. It’s all starting to gel at the right time, and a post-Zizou era of substance is at last visible on the horizon, the horrid joke of a phase in between can be afforded to be forgotten.

Benzema’s drop in form has timed itself very kindly for Olivier Giroud, who’s riding on a high at Arsenal Football Club. Arsene Wenger has risked a lot by placing the striker’s load entirely on the Frenchman, but then again, when hasn’t Le Prof. shied away from taking crazy illogical risks and inviting the wrath of fans who dish out an appalling sum of money on season tickets. Yet, this quality of Arsene, this faith he has in his players, has moulded many a star, the recent uprising of Aaron Ramsey a staunch example. Well, of course, there is the odd Andre Santos that comes along, Wenger isn’t perfect.

Giroud’s rise in football has been far from meteoric, spending his teens and early twenties at clubs in the lower tiers of the French league, and was once even transfer listed by Ligue 2 side Grenoble in 2007. He waited for his chance and was rewarded with a break at Montpellier, spearheading an attack that beat oil-rich PSG to the Ligue 1 title in 2011/12. There was nothing that really stood out about him, still, except of course, his unbelievable good looks. There was the one-off left foot thrash, chip, and overhead kick, but nothing that would assure him a starting berth for Les Blues.

When Arsenal bought him in the summer of 2012, fans were bemused at the purchase of an unproven striker whose first name they must have surely believed was mispelt. It’s October 2013 now, and he has a song in which the fans managed to rhyme his almost unheard-of French second name with a Beatles classic. In the span of a season and a few months, he has endeared himself to the club and become a fan favourite. Be it his Michael Jordan-esque leap, his perfectly orchestrated celebrations, his God-I’m-handsome glance at the big screen after missing the target, there’s something about him that makes you want him to score at every game. Added to that, his inch perfect lay offs go well with his suave aura.

Yet, does he have what it takes to become a top striker at Arsenal? Does he have what it takes to be ‘World-Class’? Will the commentators, five years from now, look at Chuba Akpom miss the target and say, “If that sort of chance fell to Giroud, you would have bet your life on him burying it!”

It’s too early to judge, but that goal at home to Australia last week is one to be savoured. There are debates as to whether he meant it or not, but anyone who’s watched him play knows he’s a fan of the chip. He had a wealth of time to shuffle his feet, scuffing it would have been harder than hitting it clean. He was leaning back when he took it, he dug his foot under the ball, it was well worked. Thinking in retrospect, he would have had a more glorious chipped goal to his name if that audacious attempt against Stoke City in the second game of the League last season had dipped under the crossbar. That speed of thought was reminiscent of the Bergkamps and the Cantonas, but again, it’s too early to draw such glamorous comparisons.

Olivier Giroud has developed into a target man no elite team would overlook, but he could just turn out to be the striker they would crave. It’s going to be a big month for the handsome Frenchman at club level, he’ll have to prove that he can bring his A-game against the big guns. Let’s hope he does well, extremely well.