Fat Footballers: Adel Taarabt
If a manager (Harry Redknapp) says about one of his players: “I can’t keep protecting people, who don’t want to run about and train, and ARE ABOUT THREE STONE (10 kg) OVERWEIGHT . What am I supposed to keep saying? Keep getting your 60, 70 grand a week and don’t train? What’s the game coming to ?”, that player can’t be omitted from our beloved clan of “Fat Fooballers” !
Adel Taarabt is a winger, advanced midfielder and second striker who his quite powerful and fast, and is very good at dribbling: he was born in 1989 in Fes, Morocco, but, when he was 9-month-old, his family moved to France, so he started playing football at RC Lens, being part of the Youth team (RC Lens B) from 2004 to 2006, making one appearance for the First Team in 2006/07 Season, before being loaned to Tottenham Hotspur FC in January 2007 (2 matches).
In the following Summer the Spurs signed him on a permanent basis, but he played just 6 games in 2007/08 Season and just 1 in the following one (meanwhile Harry Redknapp had been appointed new manager), in which he was also sent on loan to Queens Park Rangers FC (Championship) from March to the end of the Season, scoring 1 goal in 7 matches before ending early the Season because of an injury.
Anyway in the short spell at Loftus Road he impressed quite well, so QPR got him on loan also for the following Season, in which he scored 7 goals in 41 matches, being a regular starter; this positive year made QPR sign Taarabt, who meanwhile had become a Moroccan International, for £1M, but Tottenham would have received the 40% of a future transfer profit.
2010/11 Season was even better, because he scored 19 goals in 44 matches, playing: he was named the Championship Player of The Year, gained a place in The Championships best XI and QPR was promoted to Premier League.
2011/12 Season wasn’t very good for Adel (2 goals in 27 matches), but The Hoops managed to stay in Premier League anyway on the last matchday, while the following year was better for him (5 goals in 31 games), but finally QPR was relegated to Championship.
In Summer 2013 he was loaned to Fulham FC, with whom he played 12 PL games without scoring any goals: the spell at Craven Cottage ended in January 2014, when he was loaned to AC Milan until the end of the Season.
The experience in Italy was quite positive, because he netted 4 goals in 14 matches: AC Milan would have signed him at the end of the Season, but Mr. Berlusconi has closed his wallet for the football club since few years ago, so the Rossoneri, who are mainly signing players on loan or at the end of their contracts, and QPR didn’t find an agreement on the price, so the Moroccan International (4 goals in 17 appearances so far with the National Team) came back to the club from London, that had just been promoted back to Premier League.
Adel Taarabt has never been too slim, but after 2014 holidays he came back to work a bit overweight and then an injury at his ankle didn’t help him to reach his optimal condition, so he gained even more chilos (according to QPR website he’s 1,78m tall and 77 kg, but we think that is his ideal weight), so that his current Manager, Harry Redknapp, who also complain a bit with him for a lack of professionalism, said what we have reported at the beginning of this post.
Moreover, few weeks ago, his teammate and friend Armand Traorè said about him: ” (…) He’s the type of guy that needs to look a little bit, he can’t eat pasta everyday, he can’t eat rice everyday – he just needs to watch out for that. I think that he went on holiday and he ate a bit too much on holiday. He came back and hurt his ankle and didn’t manage to get pre season on board properly and he is playing catch up (…)”.
As usual, we hope that Adel Taraabt won’t loose too much weight, but coming back playing at his level anyway, and we leave you with a video of his best skills and goals !
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