Thursday 17 November 2016 06:27, UK
Riyad Mahrez honed his skills on the streets of Paris, but he was made in Leicester. Adam Bate met up with the Fox from outside the box to find out more about the method behind the winger's undeniable magic…
"It's like I'm playing on the street. First of all, I'm having fun. Football is a game. So you need to enjoy your football. Then, obviously, when you're playing for a club or a city, you have to be serious as well and focus on your team. But the first thing is always to have fun."
It's good to hear. When Mahrez is on the pitch, that's certainly how it looks. Twisting and turning opponents not to torment but to amuse. He's the neutral's favourite - thrilling to watch and natural with it, beating defenders with tricks that, he says, just come to him.
Mahrez cuts a slight figure in the cold at Leicester's training ground, preparing to do some drills in Nike Football's new training apparel. It only makes the thought of this waif outwitting and eluding the defenders of the Premier League all the more remarkable. There were those who thought British football wasn't for him.
These were friends with his best interests at heart. There was a time when Mahrez agreed with them too. He once abandoned a trial at St Mirren because he was so disillusioned by the experience. A move to the Championship in 2014 wasn't an obvious fit for his talents.
"It's true," says Mahrez. "It's more physical. At the beginning, it wasn't suited to my qualities to play here. The environment in England is not the same as France. But I just looked at it as a challenge. It was difficult and it was a challenge, but now it's good."
That's an understatement. He scored a late equaliser at Nottingham Forest before he'd started a game and promptly helped Leicester win promotion. Since then, of course, there has been the extraordinary Premier League title victory and a PFA player of the year award.
Now Mahrez is proving a Champions League success story too. He scored three goals in his first three games in the competition. Only Lionel Messi and Edinson Cavani could beat that. Leicester are already set for the knockout stages. The dreams just keep getting bigger.
And yet, Mahrez shrugs at the prospect of winning the competition. "You never know," he replies, laughing nervously. You'd think he'd be ready to believe in the impossible by now but it's refreshing nevertheless.
The boyish feeling of excitement is still there. At the Champions League music, the achievement of even getting there and that keen sense of a journey that's ongoing. "This is the team that came from nowhere to play in the Champions League," he adds with pride.
Perhaps that's why, while he talks of having "less freedom" in Europe, he's unconcerned by the increased workload this season. "It's not that bad," he says. "Anyway, this team used to play in the Championship every three days. Seventy per cent of the team was here then."
It's been quite the adventure for those Leicester players but there's something particularly seductive about the story of the Algeria international who grew up on the outskirts of Paris with the ball for company. The dribbler wowing them all with only his wit and imagination for help.
However, it's a story that's not entirely accurate. It's certainly not the story as they've come to see it within the club. Mahrez is every bit the playful winger. But he's also a man who has worked on his game. Someone who has studied hard to improve with and without the ball.
Leicester's analysis department did their homework to bring Mahrez to the country, but the work went on after his arrival. Initially, they sat and watched videos together of the player's best games for Le Havre, showing him how and why he could be a success in England.
Such is the attention to detail that they film training sessions with multiple cameras before discussing with the players. Not everyone engages with this material easily. Mahrez was different. Not only did he listen to coach Craig Shakespeare, he offered ideas of his own.
Speaking to Mahrez, he instantly becomes more animated when conversation turns to these smartboards. "Yeah, I like this," he says. "I like to see what I can arrange." In a tone that's more childlike enthusiasm than narcissism, he adds: "It's always good to watch yourself."
He studies others, using their positioning as a basis for his own. "Barcelona and Real Madrid wingers, these are the big players at the big clubs and you have to watch them," he adds. "They are at a top level. I'm not going to say they inspire me but I take things from them."
I work on my recoveries, coming back into the defensive line and things like that.
Having worked on the need to track the full-back with Nigel Pearson, there was a change of emphasis under Claudio Ranieri that proved a key catalyst to the team's dramatic upturn in fortunes. Instead of playing as a more traditional winger, he was encouraged to drift inside.
Ranieri's desire to play 4-4-2 necessitates a compact midfield. Ostensibly, this is a defensive move but it serves a dual purpose. By moving inside when out of possession, Mahrez is better placed to cause the opposition problems on the counter-attack.
It's something that he has endeavoured to improve. "I work on my recoveries, coming back into the defensive line and things like that," he explains. "I had to work on that before but now I'm better at it." The numbers back him up emphatically.
Mahrez recovered possession 219 times in the Premier League last season. That was more than any other winger in the country and even placed him among the top 20 midfielders. It was a testament to Leicester's efforts but also to his own tactical work too.
It's a different side to the laughing and smiling Mahrez - a self-professed "funny guy" who is happier presenting the image of the man who plays for fun. "I just play like always," he says with a twinkle in his eye. But there's method to Mahrez's magic.
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