London: So the PFA has confirmed what we already knew: Riyad Mahrez deserves to be ranked alongside greats such as Roy Keane and Harrison Ford. Like the Irish midfielder who famously wrote as a child to every English club to ask for a trial except Manchester United because he thought he would not be good enough for them, or the jobbing American actor who nearly turned down the role of Han Solo in Star Wars because he feared it would not enable him to make ends meet, Mahrez was initially reluctant to join Leicester City because he figured, less than three years ago, that England was the one country where he could not succeed. How gloriously wrong he was.
“Everybody was saying to me ‘Riyad, England is not for you, it is too physical, too strong, Spanish football would suit you better ... so I never thought I would play in England,” Mahrez told the Guardian in September , explaining why, in late 2013, his first inclination was to shy away from a proposed move from the French second division side Le Havre to Leicester, who were then top of the Championship.
Leicester’s head of recruitment, Steve Walsh, met Mahrez repeatedly to help convince him he had the skill to survive and thrive in the English jungle and, following the best Euro 450,000 (Dh1.8 million) that Leicester ever spent, the Algerian began building up to performances that made his PFA accolade inevitable.
Yes, inevitable, especially given the timing of the voting, which prevented the electorate from factoring in any late dwindling by Leicester. One could argue that Mahrez is not a supernatural marvel in the line of past Players of the Year such as Luis Suarez or Cristiano Ronaldo and is the most likely recipient of the award to fade into ordinariness since, well, Eden Hazard, but what is not open for debate is that, from the moment he scored twice in Leicester’s opening day victory over Sunderland, the Algerian has been the chief creator in English football’s most improbable title challenge since Sol Campbell ran for mayor of London.
Quique Sanchez Flores seemed close to bang on - but not quite - when he said after a 1-0 home defeat by Claudio Ranieri’s team in March: “What Claudio is doing is amazing: everyone knows how his team plays but no one can stop them.”
It is true that Leicester have become more regimented as the season has progressed but Mahrez, who scored the winning goal in that match against Watford with a lovely no-backlift curler from the edge of the area, has been the one player who has remained unpredictable.
In France managers like to talk of special players who apporte la folie - bring the madness - and Mahrez is the beautiful loon in Leicester’s system, the one who consistently does things no opponent can reasonably foresee.
Jamie Vardy has speed that is difficult to contain and N’Golo Kante dynamism that no one can match but Mahrez’s contribution relies much less on athletic gifts even if he, too, is very fast. Indeed, his effectiveness often seems a triumph over physical disadvantage because of the twig-like build that made friends counsel him against a career in England. Not that he is brittle - he has delivered despite being the second-most fouled player in the league this season (after Wilfried Zaha).
But his real power comes from sharpness of mind and slightness of foot, the ability to make opponents seem encumbered by superfluous brawn as he shimmies, darts or twists past them - on either side, if you please - like a waifish assassin, a goalbound glimmer man. There is nothing superfluous about Mahrez: he knows so many tricks he could go busking in shopping centres but he performs them only at the right time and place: there is a delicious glee in the way he torments rivals but, most of all, there is deadly efficiency, proving, along with the defensive work he never shuns, that he is as disciplined as the rest of this Leicester team. You want end product, he will give it to you in golden wrapping paper and a bow tied with a clove hitch knot.
He showcased all his skills in the victory at Manchester City in February, which brought perhaps the best individual and collective performance of the season, in a match that seemed pivotal in the title race. Mahrez rose to the occasion magnificently, demanding the ball at every opportunity and flummoxing opponents with his elusiveness from as early as the second minute, when all that the already overwhelmed Fabian Delph and Alexander Kolarov could do in the face of his wriggly provocation was whack him to the ground.
Mahrez got up to deliver the free-kick from which Robert Huth scored, then carried on taunting his hosts for the remainder of the game. He crowned the display with the goal that clinched a precious victory in a style that few could emulate, collecting a pass and hurdling Nicolas Otamendi with one cute touch before selling Martin Demichelis a stepover and cracking the ball into the net after neutralising Joe Hart with an old Jedi mind trick.
You can take your stats and shove them up the abacus - you know, the ones that show that Mahrez has created fewer chances this season than Robbie Brady and Moussa Sissoko - because this season Mahrez has been the force to behold.
