Julien Faubert lifts lid on ‘strangest transfer ever’, reveals how Raul was Bernabeu ‘boss’ and gives Real Madrid v Chelsea prediction

Julien Faubert spent five seasons with West Ham in the Premier League and the Championship, although he played the second half of the 2008-9 campaign on loan at Real Madrid where he made just two appearances.

In an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes: Fanzone, the former France and Martinique international recalled that move to the Bernabeu and his return to Upton Park but he got things started by giving his thoughts on tonight’s Champions League quarter-final between Real Madrid and Chelsea.

Real Madrid v Chelsea prediction

A Real Madrid win is to be expected tonight, especially with how Chelsea are playing at the moment. My own experience of playing for Madrid tells me there’s a completely different level when it comes to European football. They have a league level and a Champions League level. You can just feel everything go up a notch in training in the days leading up to a European game. Everything is faster, everything is harder, everything changes, because it’s a European night.

Benzema 🆚 Chelsea…@Benzema || #UCL pic.twitter.com/M1eIt2ddoM

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 12, 2023

I can’t say either trophy is more important, necessarily, because Real Madrid go out to win every single game, but the standard of everything just goes up a level when it comes to European football. Let’s see how Chelsea can cope with it, but I think Madrid are in a good position to win tonight. I say they’ll win 2-0, with one goal coming from Benzema.

If I could pick one player from Real Madrid’s team to move to the Premier League, it would be Vinicius Junior. He’d need a team who play fast, forward-thinking football, somewhere he won’t have to defend that much. I could see him at Chelsea or Arsenal!

The strangest transfer and how Madrid move almost fell through

I see my name, and my move to Real Madrid, mentioned a lot when it comes to some of the strangest transfers ever, but for me, it’s not an insult. A club like Real Madrid has – pretty much – an endless list of choices, of options, of solutions to areas on the pitch. At the time, they wanted to sign Antonio Valencia, and it was said that I was their second choice. That’s a proud moment for me, because I think I saw they had something like 10 or 15 names they were looking at.

The story just came out of nowhere, to be honest. I remember we had a game in the league against Fulham, and I got a call from a number I didn’t recognise. It was a French guy, who said he was a representative from Real Madrid, which I thought was strange in itself. I told him I didn’t have time to speak to him, because I needed to focus on the game. I switched my phone off. We played the game, beat Fulham and eventually I switched my phone back on.

Julien Faubert made two appearances for Real Madrid during the 2008/09 season after joining on loan from West Ham.

He once missed training thinking he had a day off and was seen sleeping on the bench during a LaLiga game. 😳

— Squawka (@Squawka) July 29, 2021

At this point, I had something like 50 text messages and 20 voicemails! My agent was desperately trying to get in contact with me, and by the time I spoke with him, people were already waiting for me at Heathrow Airport. My agent assured me it wasn’t a joke, and that I needed to get over to meet with these people.

At first, West Ham agreed to the loan move. They didn’t know all of the details, but they were happy to let me go out for the rest of the season. But when they knew it was Real Madrid things changed and – of course – they wanted some money! I think, in the end, Madrid ended up paying something like £1.5m for me, and I flew out to Madrid the next day.

I didn’t expect any of it to happen at all, but of course I was so happy to go and play for one of the biggest clubs in the world. I learned so many things out there. I might not have played as much as I wanted, but to play with some of the biggest names in the world was an honour.

Raul was the boss of Madrid’s dressing room

It didn’t matter that I was joining up with some of the biggest names in world football. I wanted to fit into the dressing room, and I felt like I did that during my time with Real Madrid. I felt welcomed from day one, as crazy as the experience was. At the end of the day, a dressing room is a dressing room, and you’ll still get players making jokes, you’ll hear arguments, you’ll see players coming in who didn’t really want to train, but this is all completely normal.

🇪🇸 Raúl González = Champions League icon!

✅ Three-time winner with Real Madrid
✅ Youngest hat-trick scorer in competition history
✅ First player to reach 100 appearances
✅ Once the all-time top scorer#HBD | #UCL pic.twitter.com/mmZhnJEIvg

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) June 27, 2022

The Dutch players really helped me settle, because they all spoke English. I had Ruud van Nistelrooy there, who – of course – came from the Premier League. There were a couple of French guys too. And then the really big stars of the team, the Rauls, the Michel Salgados, they spoke really good English, so it was easy for me to settle into things.

I saw very quickly just how much power some of those guys had in that dressing room, though. You can feel the presence of the likes of Raul and Iker Casillas as soon as they walked into the room. Raul was the boss there. He had his own physios, his own masseuse. He trained differently to us, you know. I played with some crazy defenders there, like Pepe and Sergio Ramos, who would absolutely hit you in training if they had to. But with Raul, the treatment was different. You weren’t allowed to go in that hard, or that strong. He was the boss.

‘Sleeping’ on the subs’ bench as a rookie

It’s funny because one of the moments I’m most known for during my time with Madrid is that picture of me ‘sleeping’ on the bench during a game. I can say now, I was very much a rookie at that stage in my career when it came to the media. I didn’t know the extent of how much was being filmed from the stadium. You’ve got the cameras focusing on the pitch, capturing the game, but then you’ve got cameras which are facing the dugouts for the duration of the game, just to pick up any little moments. It was unbelievable, the Spanish media… they just wanted to make stories.

For a few seconds, I just slumped back in my chair and closed my eyes, and that was it. The media said they’d caught me sleeping. The press guy from Madrid came to me straight after the game and told me a key piece of advice which stayed with me… “Julien, here, you can’t ever relax, you can only do that at home, because there are cameras absolutely everywhere”.

It was funny at the time, because obviously it was something all of my team-mates were used to, and they knew that the photos weren’t an accurate representation. The players just said “welcome to Madrid!”, because that was it, that was the kind of thing which came with the territory of playing for a club of that size. A couple of the older guys, Ruud van
Nistelrooy and Michel Salgado, came to me and said: “Julien, this is Madrid. Even when you are outside, you are not alone. You need to be careful with everything. The only place you can relax and be yourself is at home.”

My two sons have seen the clip and they think it’s really funny – “Dad, did you really sleep on the bench?” “No, no, that’s not true!”

I was fortunate in my career to not spend much time on the bench, but that memory stayed in my head, Whenever I was a sub I made extra sure I was keeping my eyes wide open, just in case anyone happened to take a similar picture!

Carlton Cole and Mark Noble’s banter after returning from Madrid

Of course, when I came back to West Ham, my team-mates joked around with me about the whole thing. Carlton Cole was one of the main culprits. The first day I returned to training, he came over to me, offered his hand out and asked me how I’d like him to greet me. Was I a sir now or something else? And then, often in training, if I made a quick burst down the wing, Mark Noble would say something like “wow, guys we’ve got a Real Madrid player in our team!”

But those kind of jokes are exactly what I love about England. You join Madrid from a French team and return to your former club, I swear, your team-mates would be jealous of you.

"The love is still here."

🗣 @Faubertofficial enjoyed an emotional return to the Club ➡️ https://t.co/L31KUae6Gn#COYI pic.twitter.com/l5OdoAWwNp

— West Ham United (@WestHam) January 9, 2017

But when I came back to West Ham, I just felt straight back at home. The dressing room was just as I remembered it, the atmosphere was great, and I was so happy to be with those guys again.

I felt like I came back to the Premier League with something to prove, as well. Returning after that move to Madrid, and all of the attention it got, I was focused on making sure my performances were matching my own expectations. I think I made something like 35 appearances the following season and did really well for the team.

Royston Drenthe could have been a Premier League great

Royston Drenthe was a great guy; a great team-mate. He’d be right up there in terms of Madrid players I’d want to go for a drink with today. He was so funny, so crazy. His personality is so similar to so many French players I’ve grown up with. Half of his brain stayed with his upbringing, you know. He always remembered where he came from. He came from a rough area in the Netherlands, and with Royston came this – almost American gangster-type – attitude.

But he was a really good guy to be around. He had a crazy amount of quality, too, and maybe he could have achieved even more. He had the speed, the strength, and all the necessary attributes to have been a real success in the Premier League… it’s a real shame it didn’t work out for him.

Pepe, Raul and Sergio Ramos would turn from jokers to animals

Whenever I think back to Real Madrid, and what I took away from my time with the club, I always go back to that winning mentality. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. The way those guys had the ability to just switch their attitudes into game mode, it was unbelievable. I’d turn up and people would be getting changed, laughing and joking with each other, and then the closer we got to the game, these guys changed completely.

There was a constant winning mentality running through the team – those guys wanted to win at everything they did. They wanted to win every competition, again and again. We had Champions League winners, World Cup winners, La Liga and Ballon d’Or winners, but they were so driven to go again, and win again. It didn’t matter whether it was an El Clasico or a game against a smaller team, these guys wanted to win more than I’ve ever experienced. That mentality is something I took with me for the rest of my career – nothing is more important than winning.

Raul, Pepe, Sergio Ramos; these guys had double personalities, almost. They changed from jokers to animals just like that – and that’s what I think of whenever I hear the words ‘Real Madrid’.