Ex-Gunner Lauren on turning down Madrid and how Cameroon could beat Invincibles

Published on: 27 May 2020

It was only 20 years ago, but when Lauren Bisan speaks about signing for Arsenal and the fiercely competitive dressing room he soon became an integral part of, it might seem like another lifetime for supporters of the club.

It was May 2000 when he made what he calls 'the most important decision of my life' sat in then-vice president David Dein's front room, committing to Arsenal, rejecting Real Madrid in the process.

In seven years he became part of the 'Invincibles' team that went unbeaten in the 03-04 season, he won two leagues and three FA Cups.

Success was built on a desire to win which was nurtured in training sessions so intense new signings would be left stunned.

'They were very tough' he says as he describes the defensive drills that instilled the indestructibility. 'We were so competitive. It's a good job reporters weren't allowed in to watch.

'We would play one on one, two on one, four on five and it was impossible for them [the strikers] to score.

'It was hard but noble. I remember when Gilberto Silva came to the club, and he saw how we trained.'

Lauren breaks off laughing, mentions the words 'Martin Keown' who had accidentally injured goalkeeper Rami Shaaban in the session, laughs some more and then continues: 'We got to the dressing room and Gilberto says: "Mate, is everyone mad here? What's going on?"

'From the next day on, he never took his shin pads off. He trained with them every day. And we're talking about Gilberto Silva, eh!'

Lauren had always possessed the resilience he would need to survive at a big club.

His formative years were marked by his father Valentín fleeing dictator Francisco Macías' Spanish Guinea and taking his family across the border into Cameroon where Lauren was born 1977 and from where the family then moved to Seville where he grew up.

'From the age of 11 I was walking to training alone,' he says. 'The first time I set foot back on African soil in 1998 I went alone to the Cameroon national team. I couldn't speak French but I adapted, I always have done.'

He was never going to be overawed by the reputation of players such as Lee Dixon and Tony Adams, members of a group he was being brought in to replace.

'I don't care about that at all,' he says. 'I didn't care about what this guy has won, or that guy. I start from the premise that we're all the same: you respect me, I respect you, full stop. If you like me, good. If you don't, goodbye.'

Despite the self-confidence there were still three problems to be faced when he arrived: First, he wasn't yet the defender Arsene Wenger wanted him to become; secondly, no sooner did the season start than he had to go off to the Sydney Olympics; and thirdly, when the hailstones in London started to come down in August, wife Monica wanted to go home.

'What the manager really wanted was for me to play at full-back, he just didn't tell me that at first,' says Lauren recalling how Wenger persuaded him he could learn to play in a back four.

'Wenger would look me in the eye and say: "Top players can play in any position; if you understand the game, and are as gifted as you, you can do it."

'When someone gives you that sense of security and shows you he trusts you, that's the best thing there is. He had that ability to convince everyone.'

He started the season in midfield scoring on his home debut against Liverpool and he quickly became a regular before heading to Sydney in September.

'I was a bit worried,' he says. 'At a team like Arsenal there are four or five players in your position. We had [Ray] Parlour, [Jermaine] Pennant on one side, and on the other you had [Gio] van Bronckhorst, [Freddie] Ljungberg and [Robert] Pires. So I went to the Olympics, thinking bloody hell, if it doesn't go well, maybe I won't get back in.'

He returned with a gold medal. Was that Cameroon side even better than Arsenal? Who would have won a battle between the Indomitable Lions and the Invincibles?

'In a league game or in a tournament?' Lauren asks.

'On the pitches that Cameroon had to play on: Burkina Faso, Togo and so on. Put Xavi, Iniesta, the great Barcelona players on those pitches, let's see if they can play the same fantasy football.

'It's two different teams, two different competitions. I would say Arsenal if you're talking about a competition like the Premier League. But put the games in Africa playing in 35, 40, 45 degrees and I'm telling you that Cameroon wins.'

The Sydney Olympics got Lauren out of the London autumn weather but his wife was left behind. 'I was raised in the south of Spain, my wife is from the south of Spain, there we have sunshine 365 days of the year,' he says.

'I remember being in the hotel in August in London and it was raining hailstones. We'd gone from Sevilla to Valencia, to Mallorca with my career. Then it's London in August, almost snowing, and you're like: What the hell is this!'

He says Wenger and Arsenal looked after the young couple brilliantly in those early days.

'Wenger said to me one day: "Lauren, this is Arsenal, look at your wages, look at where you play, you cannot have everything in life". And he was right.

'The club did lots of things well and one of them was that they gave us an English teacher, Jasmine Thomas, who spent the whole day with my wife. The club tried to help you adapt you as quickly as possible. They understood that it meant you'd play better.'

On the pitch getting better at the job meant learning the Arsenal way, which was changing gradually under Wenger in 2000.

'Wenger modified things bit by bit,' he says. 'He wanted offensive players in defensive positions.

'Ashley Cole was a winger, not a full back. He converted him. I was a winger, he made me a full back. Kolo Toure played in the middle of the Ivory Coast midfield and he put him at centre back.

'[Pep] Guardiola has perfected what Wenger did. That idea was there with us. But Pat Rice and Wenger knew that because we had lots of players with an attacking mentality, they had to work with us every day.

'We were good going forward but at times, especially in the first year, it was hard for us to coordinate that four-man defence. The second year was much better.'

Rice's role, says Lauren with lots of genuine affection, is impossible to over-estimate.

Mixing his languages he says in English: 'Day in, day out, week in week out', before adding in Spanish. 'Todos los santos dias [every bloody day] working with the back four and especially with me.

'From the start there was an affinity between us. I am calm. I like to analyse. In a dressing room I try not to make a noise, but I like to understand who is who. And I think Pat understood that too. There was a quick connection.

'He would grab me and say: "You have to do this, you have to do that. Don't play the offside if there's no pressure on the player with the ball." He would tell me how to position my body, diagonally on to the ball so I could see the opponent, the centre back and the ball.

'There was so much that Pat Rice did with the defence. We would work on overloads, where we were outnumbered. We'd be four against eight and Pat Rice would be there "Move! Move!", every day. He was the one on top of us.'

Rice was also the man charged with refereeing those hearty training sessions.

'No one wanted to be the referee,' Lauren laughs. 'Wenger was clever eh! He got out of there, went off to the corner to just watch. And that hot potato was for Pat Rice. He was the bravest and he argued with everyone.

'There was argument after argument: Freddie with this guy, Martin with the other guy, me with another one, Thierry [Henry], Patrick [Vieira] … it was incredible. Bergkamp was a genius but when it came to competitiveness, mentality, he was incredible. And Henry was spectacular. That's why we won things.'

And if Rice deserves credit for the way the Arsenal machine worked so well, then so does Dein who had brought in Wenger and made sure he got the players he wanted, even when that meant beating Real Madrid to the signing.

Lauren recalls: 'My representative came to Madrid, met Juan Onieva [the vice-president] and they didn't reach an agreement because the economic conditions that Madrid offered didn't convince us.

'We got on a flight and went straight to London, because there had been contact with Arsenal before. When we arrived we went straight to David Dein's house. It was David Dein, his daughter who spoke Spanish, Arsene Wenger, me, my representative, and a translator who we had brought with us because my English was non-existent.

'What really struck me was that I had always negotiated in an office with everyone very serious, wearing suits and ties.

'This was totally different. David Dein opens his home to you. His personality was spectacular, the treatment man to man was fantastic and I left there totally convinced.

And Wenger, with that human warmth he has, that approachable character of his. During negotiations he didn't speak too much; he listens to you, watches you, he's seeing if you have the personality to be able to take on this challenge.'

And so he picked Arsenal over Real Madrid. Were they stunned at being turned down?

'At Madrid it was like you had to do what they said: this is the way it is, full stop. My dad is a Madrid fan, I was always a Sevilla fan and then Madrid as well, but when another club comes along with another attitude however much you might have liked Madrid, you go to the place where they treat you best and where they offer you the best terms.'

Arsenal beating Madrid to a player: that scenario belongs to another era. So does the picture he paints of the persuasion process. 'The way that Dein and Wenger acted struck us. It wasn't come to the club, it was come to my house. Come to be with my family, in my home. Come to join us.'

He did. And 20 years on he has no regrets and still plenty of affection for Arsenal. Was it the best decision of his life?

'Totally, without doubt,' he says. 'Playing with the best players, at an institution like Arsenal, in England, and with the man who, for me, was the best manager a young player could have.'

Source: m.allfootballapp.com

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website.
Learn more