Sol Campbell

by Simon Astaire

  • • •

  Dein called and Sol picked up. He asked Sol if he could help; straightforward, honest and keeping his word from when they first met. ‘We will protect you,’ he had said.

  He cancelled his meetings and went straight to Heathrow. He took the next available flight to Brussels. He knew from their very first meeting that Sol was vulnerable and needed to be looked after. He saw a deeper thinker who, in simple terms, needed to be loved. ‘The first thing I wanted when we first met was for him to trust me,’ Dein says.

  They met in a small French bistro later that night, with no more than eight tables of which only half were occupied. Low-lit, with plenty of scope for a private conversation. The food was good, and although it was Sol’s first visit there seemed a familiarity. At the table was Dein, Elizabeth and Sol. It was pleasant, easy conversation. Sol liked Dein. He had done since they first met and his visit of support would never be forgotten. ‘Dein loves his club and that makes everything he says sound sincere,’ Sol reiterates.

  They drank white wine and ordered fish from the menu. Sol spoke mainly about his football. He wasn’t ready to open up to Dein about every part of his life, of why he had escaped, why he had fled to a foreign city. Sol’s tone was surprisingly sanguine. He said he felt he was letting himself down and in return letting the team down with his performances. His fight for full fitness was a continuous struggle. ‘So when you are trying to regain your form and you’re in pain, it makes the road back complicated and very difficult,’ says Sol. ‘With everything that was going on, I didn’t even have my form to fall back on. Football was my life. It had created all these opportunities, my everyday existence was bound up in it and here I was, losing that too. I can’t truly express the pain of having the sense that I was losing my career as a footballer. That, on top of everything else, nearly proved too much…’

  Dein of course understood. He had great respect for the player he helped to sign. He, like many at Arsenal, had seen what pressure Sol had been put under since his transfer across North London. But he had no idea that the difficulties would escalate to this degree. He certainly hadn’t expected it. Dein assured Sol that he had his manager’s backing. That he should take his time and return only when ready. They shook hands on it. ‘I appreciated Dein coming out to see me, it meant a lot,’ Sol says. Yet there is no resentment that Wenger did not call Sol once during those days. It is only sice then that he’s heard how concerned Wenger was. ‘It’s just not his style. He isn’t like Alex Ferguson, who has the reputation of knowing, or rather wanting to know, what’s going on in his players’ lives. Arsene does not. It’s okay. I knew how it was.’

  After the dinner, Sol began to believe he was already on the road to recovery. His mere action of escape had helped clear his mind. Although he had only been in Brussels at that point for four days, he felt better, so much better. ‘I’ll be back before the week is out,’ he thought.

  The next few days followed the pattern of days before; Elizabeth dropping Sol in town before she went off to work and Sol finding a bar or a café, where he could slink away with his demons, clearing them slowly from his mind. He spent evenings in with Elizabeth and the children. He had started to reply to his messages. He called his mum every day. My poor mum, he thought. The family had been ripped apart by his fame, his success. His brother’s prison sentence, the gossip and lies about his sexuality. I’m quiet. That’s all. I’m just reserved. People are suspicious of that. God help me! Why don’t people understand I’m just different to most professional footballers? I keep myself to myself and because of this everyone thinks I’m odd. He leaves the café, which has become his second home, and walks into the Grand Place and looks around at the locals and tourists as they take in its beauty. He feels part of them, not separate as he had when he first arrived. Yes, it’s time to go home. He may not be cured but he is certainly strong enough to return to England. He is determined to pick up his career again and see through his contract with Arsenal.

  The following morning, he was driven to the station. He said goodbye to the children and thanked Elizabeth for her true friendship. He will be forever grateful. The Eurostar home was without incident. He slept most of the way. When he arrived in London, he hailed a black cab. As the cab moved away from the station, the driver looked into his rear mirror and recognised his passenger. He said nothing. He left Sol alone until he got out and then refused to accept Sol’s fare.

  ‘Welcome home Sol,’ the cabbie said. ‘You’ve been missed.’

  • • •

  Champions League Final 2006

  ‘I think it just came down to little mistakes here and there as to why we didn’t win the Champions League. I believe the Cup will remain elusive until something clicks; something changes and luck turns in our favour.’

  Sol

  He woke up early on the morning of the 2006 Champions League Final in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. His mouth was dry. What time is it? He groped for his watch. One minute before the alarm was set. His timing was good. Let’s hope it lasts the whole day. Before he showered, he knelt down on his knees by his bed and prayed. He heard it said that to try to pray is to pray. Sometimes it flowed, other times it was difficult. But that morning, the words flowed easily. He prayed as ever for his mother, for God to watch over the team, for strength that he would play his best. He got up feeling good, feeling strong. He had a shave and then a long hot shower. While doing so, he kept on repeating to himself, ‘Today, I am going to make my presence felt.’ It was going to be his last game for the club. He was moving on.

  He had met with Dein and Wenger and told them he wanted to leave. ‘I needed to get out of England, to get out of London to play abroad. At the time, I thought I had little choice.’ He pauses and reflects on what he has just said. ‘Maybe they should have made more of an effort to keep me. I knew my form had dipped and there were the other problems, which of course they knew about. But with me, they had quality and a player who had proved himself.’ His tone softens. ‘Perhaps they should have persevered in trying to change my mind. Not let me go. Like Alex Ferguson did with Ryan Giggs. He’s a quality player, and there was a time he could have let him go to Inter Milan but he didn’t, because he knew he would get out of his trough and that eventually his quality would come through.’

  He still had two-and-half years remaining on his contract but it was agreed that he would finish with Arsenal at the end of the season and become a free agent. ‘I think if I had a regret, it was that I should have stayed with Arsenal and let them find me another club. I don’t think I needed the stress at that point in my life of becoming a free agent. But I was never sold by any club I played for. I think I’m the only player from the top league to have that.

  ‘But there comes a moment on any journey when you’re tired, and you just want to leave, however wonderful the place.’

  ‘I supported him leaving Arsenal,’ says Arsene Wenger, ‘because I thought a fresh start abroad would help. I think the Arsenal-Tottenham transfer still shadowed him probably more than he realised. It was lasting far longer than any of us could believe. There would be none of that abroad.’

  • • •

  Sol is shaving methodically and looking at the strokes from the electric razor on his chin. He cuts himself, or could have sworn he cut himself but no blood emerges. No, it was sucked out long ago, he thinks. He feels the hangover from the season, the previous months. He knows he’s only playing today because of an injury to Philippe Senderos; as they say ‘through other’s misfortune you get your chance.’ He had played in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final. After Arsenal beat Villarreal 1-0 in the first leg from a Kolo Touré goal, in the return they drew 0-0 at El Madrigal. A last-minute penalty save from Jens Lehmann secured the two-leg victory. Sol remembers that moment as a sign he was truly back: ‘No-one realised that when Jens parried it out, the danger was still on. But I did. I saw the danger before the penalty-kick was even taken. I’d worked out instinctively, call it what y
ou will, that if the ball was parried by the keeper it would fall at the exact spot it did. If I hadn’t been alert and kicked it out for a corner, then it’d be 1-1…’

  Back in Paris, he finds his mind drifting towards thoughts of the final against Barcelona. ‘It was with me all day, that this was going to be my last-ever game for Arsenal.’ But few know this, certainly none of the players. He has told just two people that he is leaving: one his lawyer, the other is his mother. Not unlike when he moved to Arsenal in the first place. At times over the last months since his return from Brussels, he’d felt a little peaky, as if he was climbing a mountain and altitude sickness was setting in. But not this morning. He is feeling positively positive; the past cleansed, the present what he has worked for since kicking the ball against the wall as a little boy.

  He has breakfast alone in his room: coffee with three slices of brown toast. Yes, he felt good, he felt strong and fit; a hundred per cent fit for the first time in a long while, since an injury sustained in training on the big toe of his left foot. ‘Kolo Touré did a block tackle with his studs showing. It was a stress reaction, which at first was dealt with by a couple of injections. Maybe I should have let it heal and, when I got back to full fitness, start to try to get back in the side. But like most players, we want to continue, we want the games to flow. I wasn’t twenty-one any longer. I suppose I was fearful I’d never get my place back.’

  The team met downstairs. When he returned from his days in Brussels, he brought the players together and apologised for what had happened. ‘He said he was sorry and we all moved on,’ says Thierry Henry. ‘I didn’t approach him about what had happened. We spoke a lot, so I knew some of what he was going through. I thought if he wants to talk more, I’m here for him. What I truly believe is that Sol deserves happiness.’

  The squad went for a walk close to the hotel on Place de la Concorde. The Parisians seemed oblivious to the group of football superstars marching down the street. As he walked, he found himself looking at his team-mates. We have a good chance. He felt relaxed. The team seemed relaxed. He studied the players and their movements. Here we are, at the top of our game. Ready. As far removed as you could be from the days when you’re a rookie youth player called up for your first appearance for the first team; the nerves, the tension, the anxiety about not being ready. It had never been like that for Sol. He had always been ready. He was relishing the day. He loved competing at the highest level. It was his drug. He was also thinking if he played well today, another club would be interested.

  When they got back to the hotel, they had a meeting to discuss more of the game, followed by lunch. They spoke about individuals for Barcelona. So many of their players were dangerous. Giuly, on the left, liked making runs into the central areas to try to split the right-back and centre-half, or sometimes if the centre-forward came deep, he would try to do a diagonal run in between the two centre-halves, to break the line, or collect a clever ball threaded through to him on the run. In that way he was similar to Freddie Ljungberg.

  Ronaldinho had the ability to break the back line with the ball. He could thread the ball through as well as anyone, or chip the ball over the defence. Nothing with the Brazilian was predictable, other than he was going to do something very special. He had the ability to shoot from outside the box from twenty-five or thirty yards out. ‘We were aware that Ronaldinho and Deco were dangerous with their shooting. If they got the ball outside the box, we had to lock them down and engage immediately. I would rather he tried to shoot when I was right in front of him, because I’m confident I’ve got his line. I can see from the shape of his foot where he’s shooting. But I must not show my cards immediately, because the best players are quite likely to do a fake to get closer to the goal,’ says Sol. ‘We were aware that Edmilson would sit deeper in midfield as the other two moved forward. He was there as a safety net, to be in the right places so we didn’t have much of a chance at goal. We knew Van Bommel would receive the ball and distribute it very quickly. He had a rather nasty way about him; always with the backchat. He was almost like a hatchet man, trying to hurt you. But he was good at it and he could certainly play football. We spoke of Van Bronckhorst, formerly of Arsenal. We knew he had a good left foot, so you couldn’t allow him to have space diagonally on the edge of the box. If he came into that danger zone, we had to watch him.’

  When the Arsenal players went onto lunch, they felt confident. They held no fear. They just wanted to get on with the game. Sol had chicken soup, some bread, followed by plain pasta. He drank apple juice. Afterwards he went back to his room to have a siesta. He slept for over an hour. He got up and did some stretching, went downstairs to have some tea and toast and then returned to his room to have his second shower of the day; a hot shower to loosen his muscles. Before leaving his room to meet the team downstairs, he took a bottle of water from the minibar and poured it, the neck of the bottle rattling against the glass. It resembled a bell in a boxing ring. Seconds out. Yes, I’m ready. I’ve never been so ready.

  When he got downstairs, the team had a quick ten-minute meeting before boarding the coach. ‘Bon chance!’ the girls at the front desk shout and bystanders stare and wonder what fate may bring these players. And then it’s off to the Stade de France to play in the Champions League final in front of the world. ‘Rock ’n’ roll,’ says Sol as he boards the coach.

  ‘The atmosphere at the stadium felt like two warlords ready for battle. You have Catalan on one side, you have London on the other; ready to do battle out on a green cut field. It is beautiful to me. It’s where I find peace.’ The dressing room is louder than usual; players pacing, psyching themselves up; a feverish energy. Sol stretches out first his legs, and then arms. The yellow shirts seem to shimmer, although here there is no breeze. Is that plain yellow or is it a golden yellow shirt? He’s never thought about that before. It’s hardly important but the thought for a second is there. He’s in his zone but his heightened awareness makes him observant of the smallest detail. Wenger says a few words before the team leaves the dressing room. The words were no longer important. They all knew what they had to do. Wenger nods his head at Sol. He has faith that the rock of his defense, the spine of his Invincible team, will not let him down.

  In the tunnel, Sol looks at his opposition: Carlos Puyol, Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o… Some players like to look straight ahead towards the light but not Sol; he likes to take it in, feel gladiatorial. Although there are eighty thousand people a few feet away, he hears little sound except the crackle of movement from the players standing in line. The calm remains uninterrupted until he steps into the light… And then a roar explodes.

  The teams line up in front of the main stand to the accompaniment of the Champions League anthem. ‘There was a moment out there, and it happens with the England team during the national anthem, where I almost went into a daze. It’s like I’m not there anymore. I don’t notice the cameras hovering in front. I simply zone out for about ten seconds, into a deep meditation. It happens every time at games where the pressure is magnified. One, two and three, up to ten and then suddenly I come back and like that,’ Sol snaps his fingers, ‘I’m ready!’

  • • •

  Barcelona 2 Arsenal 1, Champions League Final, Stade de France, 17 May 2006

  Barcelona: Valdes, Oleguer (Belletti 71), Marquez, Puyol, Van Bronckhorst, Deco, Edmilson (Iniesta 45), Van Bommel (Larsson 61), Giuly, Eto’o, Ronaldinho. Subs Not Used: Jorquera, Motta, Xavi, Sylvinho. Goals: Eto’o (76), Belletti (80).

  Arsenal: Lehmann, Eboue, Toure, Campbell, Cole, Pires (Almunia 20), Silva, Fabregas (Flamini 74), Hleb (Reyes 85), Ljungberg, Henry. Subs Not Used: Bergkamp, Van Persie, Senderos, Clichy. Sent Off: Lehmann (18). Goals: Campbell (37).

  Att: 79,500. Ref: Terje Hauge.

  In a thrilling final, Campbell gives Arsenal the lead in the 37th minute with a bullet header, but only after the Gunners are reduced to ten men with the sending off of goalkeeper Lehmann after he upends an onrushing Eto’o. Arsenal are f
orced into a reshuffle and replace Pires, as Barcelona take control of the match in the second-half. The pressure finally tells, when Larsson plays in Eto’o for an equaliser, followed four minutes later by substitute Belletti’s winning goal. A brave fight by Arsenal, but Barcelona are champions of Europe.

  Thierry Henry could have twice given Arsenal the lead in the opening minutes. He turned brilliantly, only to be denied by the diving Victor Valdes from point-blank range, and from the resulting corner was again denied by the goalkeeper saving at the near post. Then the Lehmann sending off. ‘I don’t blame Jens. In the end he did save us from being a goal down early on in the match,’ Sol says.

  Barcelona duly built up the pressure, but it was Sol who scored. ‘No-one picked me up. Barcelona seemed arrogant, like he won’t be any trouble, or whatever. There was definitely a sense of that.’ Wenger lifted his arms in delight. ‘I knew it would be Sol. He was destined to score. It was Sol once again climbing to the occasion. He was immense that day. Immense.’ Henry had swung the ball in from a free-kick. ‘It wasn’t aimed for me but it went into the perfect area, where one of the big guys can get their head to it. If it misses me, it will hit someone else,’ says Sol. He timed his run to perfection; just a few paces but those of a seasoned player. It isn’t surprising how important goals from senior players seem to come from an accumulation of experience: where to position yourself, your actions, the movement off the ball, an instinctive feeling of what the opposition is going to do. He meets the ball hard with strength and twists his head to guide it in perfectly. Nothing was going to stop him meeting that ball. Nothing was going to stop him scoring one of the most important goals of his life.