The day Real Madrid knocked on his door, Julien Faubert hung up the phone. "We were going on the bus on the way to the stadium to play against Fulham, a French guy called me and said, 'Hello, I work for Real Madrid and we want to talk to you.' I said I had to play an important game and I didn't have Time for those bullshit, so I turned off the phone. After the game I turned it back on and I had about 30 text messages and 50 voice messages. That's when I realized I was serious. "

It was the last days of the 2009 winter market and Real Madrid was looking for an end. The first option was Antonio Valencia but the Ecuadorian, who at that time stood out at Wigan, was out of price. So whites, immersed in an institutional crisis, went to the second name on the list. He did not expect it himself. "I called my agent and he said they were waiting for me at a Heathrow hotel," he recalls in an interview with 'The Athletic.'

Real Madrid closed a six-month loan for 1.5 million euros. The former French player remembers that even in the West Ham locker room they took it as a joke. "I went through the locker room to collect my things and everyone was laughing. 'But don't you realize? It's fucking Madrid.'

Faubert only played two games in white (against Racing and Athletic), 54 minutes in total, and in his most memorable moment he was not even dressed in a short. On a visit to Villarreal, after two months without playing, the cameras caught the Frenchman throwing a "head" on the bench.

"I was on the bench, I closed my eyes for about 30 seconds and they thought I was pissed off because I wasn't playing, so they said, 'This guy is sleeping.' The president told me he had to be careful because there were cameras and photographers everywhere. "Remember the French.

The Frenchman also remembers his debut as an international with the French team. It was in 2006 against Bosnia, just two months after Zinedine Zidane's withdrawal. "I was the first player to wear number 10 after Zidane. I didn't know I was going to wear that bib. When I got to the locker room I had no choice. 'Really? Do I have to wear this number?'" There was also joke in the dressing room of 'les bleus'.

"But the funniest thing is that nobody had warned me that they were going to summon me. I was watching television, I saw that they had given the list and I saw my fucking name. I looked on the internet because I thought they were wrong, but no, it was official "

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  • Zinedine Zidane
  • Racing de Santander

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