French international Nicolas Anelka has had a roller-coaster football career so far: in the 90s, he almost left the game altogether after a failed stint at Real Madrid left him badly bruised. But he has found the inner strength to engineer a comeback and rejoin the list of the world’s top strikers.

Anelka’s career high in the FTBL ranting system is in the 190-point region, which he hit around the end of last season. In the past four months, his FTBL rating has shed 50 points, even though he has attempted to redress the bar in his last two appearances with Chelsea, scoring against APOEL Nicosia in the Champions League and Liverpool in the Premier League: his overall rating now stands at 173.23 points.

Can Anelka further boost that rating in the coming games with the French national team against the Faeroe Islands and Austria? We believe that will depend as much on his game as on the game of his partners. The French now seem perfectly content with their current situation in World Cup 2010 qualifying: the first place in the group is almost irretrievably gone, while only a miracle can deprive them of the second place they now occupy. If they let their pride dictate their actions, the French can be expected to come out in force and try and redeem themselves for the nervy game of the first round. But if they decide on pragmatism alone, then Aneka will find it harder to continue on his rating mending path.