The French midfielder and English forward are poised for a reunion on September 14th in Milan-Bologna, exactly one month after their dressing room altercation in Rennes ended their tenure at Olympique Marseille.
The last time Jonathan Rowe and Adrien Rabiot saw each other was in the `Roazhon Park` dressing room in Rennes, and it was far from a friendly encounter. “In all my years in football, I`ve never witnessed a brawl like that. Bakola was on the ground, with the doctor trying to revive him, and these two were just fighting,” recounted De Zerbi a few days later. “These two” were Rowe and Rabiot, former Marseille teammates whose fight forced the club to part ways with them. Now, in a twist of fate worthy of a movie script, the two will face each other again on the first available occasion: September 14th at 8:45 PM at San Siro. Such are the ironies of the fixture list. Rowe will be wearing the Bologna jersey, while Rabiot will represent Milan.
Rabiot and Rowe: The Marseille Brawl
The story is well-known: Marseille lost their Ligue 1 debut in Rennes, tempers flared, and the English and French players began exchanging blows while young Darryl Bakola suffered a vasovagal crisis. “I`ve never seen anything like it,” confessed OM`s sporting director Benatia. De Zerbi added, “It was like an English pub brawl,” commenting on the club`s decision to suspend both players and encourage them to find new teams. And so it happened: on August 24th, Rowe moved to Bologna for 19.5 million euros, and a week later, Milan and Marseille reached an agreement to bring Rabiot back to Allegri`s squad for 10 million euros.
Milan-Bologna: Rabiot vs. Rowe, The Immediate Rematch
However, destiny (and the football calendar in particular) has a cruel sense of humor. After the international break, the two “contenders” might immediately find themselves as adversaries. This will depend on the decisions of coaches Allegri and Italiano. From Icardi facing Maxi Lopez to Ibrahimovic confronting Mido or Van der Vaart, it`s certainly not the first time that individuals who have had tense relationships under the same roof reunite as “enemies” on the field shortly after. Yet, neither Rowe nor Rabiot could have imagined that exactly 30 days after their altercation in Rennes, they might have to shake hands a thousand kilometers away…
