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LAUREN ETAME MAYER

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The Sunday Times
December 12, 2004
The Big Interview: Lauren
Nobody will be better prepared for today’s crunch match with Chelsea than Arsenal’s tough African defender. By Jonathan Northcroft

"So, Equatoguinean by origin, born in Cameroon, raised in Spain and now a Londoner. Where is home? “My parents came from a Spanish colony. I grew up in Spain. I speak Spanish and have a Spanish passport. In 1998 I decided to play for Cameroon because I was with Levante yet had the chance to go to the World Cup. But really I feel I’m Spanish.”

Across a wall of the new media waiting room in Arsenal’s training ground at London Colney stretches a picture, 30ft long and 6ft high. It is a panoramic photograph of Arsène Wenger and his players celebrating winning the Premiership title last season. The bodies are bouncing, the mouths are forming song words, and right in the centre, his arm round Kolo Toure and the trophy between them, is Lauren Bisan-Etame Mayer — “Lauren” to the football world, “Ralph” to waggish teammates and to Monica, his wife, simply “Low” (rhyming with “cow”). He is smiling a smile that could melt glaciers. When we meet, that smile is there as soon as I mention, by way of small talk, the Arsenal squad’s trip to a bowling alley in Watford last week. Who won? “In my game, Cesc (Fabregas),” Lauren says with a grin. “Only 17, and he wins everything!” When his smile comes, it is sudden: from his normally deadpan expression there is an explosion of teeth, a lightning fork of merriment in his eyes. It is like seeing every light in a house switch on at once. The smile is so much an expression of life and vitality, yet Lauren is only alive because of a miracle. “It’s a long story,” he reflects on a saga which, since coming to England, he has only recently felt ready to talk about.
Equatorial Guinea has been in the news because of a foiled coup allegedly involving Sir Mark Thatcher. It is a tiny country split between mountainous jungle and volcanic islands, with a population of just 520,000. Lauren was born further up Africa’s west coast in neighbouring Cameroon, but his parents and most of his 20 brothers and sisters are — ready for a new word? — Equatoguinean. During the 1970s Valentin Bisan-Etame, Lauren’s father, was a prominent politician in Equatorial Guinea’s foreign ministry.
The country was in the hands of President Francisco Macias Nguema, a dictator whose paranoia and brutality matched that of Uganda’s Idi Amin.
Macias exterminated a third of his populace before being executed after a 1979 coup. By 1977 he had imprisoned any public figure who stood up to him, including Valentin Bisan-Etame. “The regime was changing and they wanted to kill all of them (dissident politicians),” says Lauren. “My father was in jail and escaped.”
How? “It’s some story. My uncle was in the military, and when the order went out to kill them (the political prisoners) he helped them get out, not just my father but others. They killed some people, but my father escaped just in time, because he was on the execution list. He ran away to Cameroon, and my uncle too.”
Lauren’s mother had already fled with her children. “She was pregnant with me, and if our family hadn’t escaped, I probably wouldn’t have been born. We lived in Cameroon until I was three years old, and after that we went to Spain, because Guinea was a Spanish colony.”
The family settled in Seville. Some of Lauren’s sisters remained in Africa, but he and 14 brothers accompanied their parents to Andalucia.
“My mother and my father split up. My father got a good job — he was in the government of Andalucia — but he couldn’t cope with 15 boys. We lived in two small apartments in Montequinto (a rough area of Seville) with six rooms between us.”
Earlier in our conversation I asked Lauren about a comment by Victor Engonga, a former teammate at Real Mallorca. Engonga said that when he and Lauren played together in central midfield, “nobody could beat us for running”. Lauren flashed his smile and said: “No, not for running and not for fight either. It’s the way I am. I’ve always stuck up for myself. Tough boy.”
Now he elaborates: “I’ve had to look after myself since I was a kid. When you have 14 brothers, you have to find your own way. But I did many wrong things. I can’t tell you about them. They were the normal things when you grow up on the street. I realised I had to change when I was 16, 17, because my friends once got into small trouble, but now the trouble started getting bigger and bigger. I met Monica, and I had to forget about my old life. If I hadn’t, I’d never have become a footballer — although my experiences have helped me as a player, to be strong.
“My father never wanted me to become a footballer. He wanted all of us to study and go to university, and I didn’t want these things, so I had a lot of problems with him, because he was very strict. I can understand why he thought the way he did, because he’d got to where he was all by himself. He didn’t know his own father — it’s another long story. But it was difficult. We didn’t get on at all when I was young.”
Lauren and Valentin are “okay” with one another now, although they still have their differences. Yet they may be more similar than they think. Lauren keeps abreast of events in Equatorial Guinea, now suffering under another dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Macias’s nephew, and when he talks about Obiang’s pillage of the country, where the population remain mired in poverty despite the discovery of billions of dollars’ worth of oil reserves, it is with the passion and compassion of a benevolent politician. Recently, Lauren became involved in Support for Africa, a health charity established by the singer Patti Boulaye. He is helping to pay for outreach clinics to be built in rural Cameroon. “I wanted to do something in Guinea, but the government won’t allow me. I wish I could do something for that country,” Lauren says.
So, Equatoguinean by origin, born in Cameroon, raised in Spain and now a Londoner. Where is home? “My parents came from a Spanish colony. I grew up in Spain. I speak Spanish and have a Spanish passport. In 1998 I decided to play for Cameroon because I was with Levante yet had the chance to go to the World Cup. But really I feel I’m Spanish.”
IN MAY 2000, after spells with Levante, Mallorca and Sevilla “B”, Lauren arrived at Highbury. It was a pivotal summer in the development of Wenger’s Arsenal. Out went Marc Overmars, Emanuel Petit and Nigel Winterburn. In came Lauren, Edu, Sylvain Wiltord and Robert Pires. Lauren was swayed by the manager’s ambition and attention to detail. Not even Wenger’s plan to play him at right-back, rather than his more accustomed midfield, deterred him. He chose Arsenal over Real Madrid: “I was flying over to England when I had a phone call from Madrid saying, ‘No, you’ve got to come back . . . blah, blah’, but I’d already decided to sign here.”
They never forgot Lauren at the Bernabeu, however, and now Real have reawakened their interest. More than a year ago Lauren expressed a desire to extend his Arsenal contract, which expires in May, but no new deal has been forthcoming and no talks are planned between the club and his advisers. On about £20,000 a week, Lauren is one of the lowest-paid members of Wenger’s first-team squad. Twenty days from now, he will be entitled to talk to other clubs. Fiorentino Perez, the Real chairman, was quoted on Friday as saying: “Lauren will play for Real Madrid next season. We have him signed.” But this is denied by the player and his advisers. “I’d like to stay here,” Lauren says. “I feel good here and think Arsenal’s the best place to be. But I’m just 27. I can go anywhere. So it’s not a problem ).”
Reading between the lines, Lauren will remain with the Londoners, but only if given the contract he feels he deserves. Players such as Thierry Henry have stayed because they believe the current Arsenal team can make history by winning the club’s first European Cup. “Well, you can get injured and not be able to play any more, so you have to think of other things as well,” Lauren shrugs. “Arsenal know what I need and how to cope with this situation. From next month I can speak to other clubs, but I’m not thinking about that. I’m leaving everything to my agent. I’m just focusing on my game, and whatever happens, I’ll keep focused and be professional through to May. If I do my best on the pitch, everything else will fall into place.”
His best will be required against Chelsea and Arjen Robben today. It promises to be irresistible force meets immovable object: the electric Dutch winger, already a candidate for player of the season, against the indefatigable counter-attacking right-back of Arsenal.
When Lauren arrived in English football he had some adjusting to do — “It’s different here from Spain: no time, no space” — but he believes he has matured as a defender. The statistics bear him out. Actim, the Premiership’s official data service, rates him the League’s second-best defender this season, behind John Terry of Chelsea.
“We know Chelsea are stronger than last year, much stronger. They’re solid, confident and score more goals. They’ve improved a lot, and because of that, the past (it is six years and 17 games since Chelsea last beat Arsenal in a domestic fixture) doesn’t matter,” Lauren says.
“Chelsea believe in themselves more than in the past few seasons and they know they’re capable of beating any team, but we also think that. We’re playing at home and we also have that pain from last year, when Chelsea beat us in the Champions League. We would like to get rid of that pain.
“One thing about Arsenal is that we don’t worry about our opponents. We worry about ourselves. We know if we do our job properly, we can beat any team in the world. Our confidence is back. We’ve been in a difficult period because after the game with Manchester United (which Arsenal lost 2-0 in October) everyone dropped a bit mentally, but now, I think, we’ve bounced back to winning ways. Birmingham and Rosenborg were massive results. I think this will help us go on and win the game.”
Just six weeks ago, in the more excitable sections of the media, Arsenal were “The Invincibles”. Now people are writing about the apparent near-certainty that Chelsea will win four trophies this season. Lauren laughs: “That’s football!” The defender takes a healthily wry view of the media. He is an Olympic and two-time African champion, and has been a first pick in Wenger’s burnished side for 4 Å seasons, yet little is known or written about him. He likes that. “It’s good to feel the love of the supporters, it helps you in your job, but you don’t need it from the press. I don’t want to be famous like David Beckham. I think that’s no good.”
What is important is being appreciated within the Arsenal family, and if he did leave Highbury, he knows he would be giving up something unique. “We’re not only teammates. It’s more than that,” he says. “And it gives us a step up on the other teams. They haven’t got the spirit we’ve got. The atmosphere at Arsenal is not something I’ve found anywhere else. The mentality of the manager is probably at the centre. When he signs a player, he wants to know what he’s like as a human being. Obviously you have to be a good footballer. You can’t be a fantastic personality who can’t kick a football! But, for the manager, the two things have to come together in a player.”
Lauren is back talking about the bowling trip. His tales of camaraderie contradict the impression of the Arsenal camp left by events in Rosenborg in September. After a disappointing draw, Norwegian police had to board the team bus to break up a row between Lauren and Patrick Vieira which had started on the pitch when Vieira blamed his defender for Rosenborg’s goal.
“What happened was normal. You see it in any football team,” Lauren says. “Sometimes you have to say what you think and another person has to do that too, and it might cause problems, but you accept that. When you work together, and it’s work where there are pressures, like football, a person will say something and it’s like, ‘Hey! Explain yourself!’ ” So what actually happened? For the first time Lauren’s smile has a menacing edge: “It’s behind us. I don’t want to talk about it. Me and Patrick — we are friends. We’ve been out together many times. Patrick has been to my home for dinner with Dennis (Bergkamp) and Edu. I’ve been to his house with Pires. He made me welcome when I came here. I have a big respect for him and he has a big respect for me, so there’s no problem between us.”
Vieira is 5in taller and 2st heavier, but would not necessarily have been favourite had the argument become a full-blown fight. Lauren is a boxing fan, a friend of the Spanish middleweight Marcos Fernandez Miguel, known as “Marquitos”, and he has been in the ring himself. “I still have my gloves and I used to train in a gym in Seville and kept it going until recently in London. Boxing is great for fitness. But a long time ago I did it for different reasons . . .”
Another interest is literature. A favourite book is The Alchemist, by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, whose “spiritual fiction” strikes a chord with him. “Coelho talks about how you have to understand the world. I read mostly Spanish authors, though Ken Follett’s The Pillars Of The Earth is also good. I’m not a footballer who likes PlayStations. When I was a kid, yes, but now I like to do mature kinds of things, like read.”
Books and boxing, from teen tearaway to adult with a social conscience, Lauren is a man of parts. When he tackles, he can go through an opponent like a chainsaw. “Yes, and you’re going to say that off the pitch I can be such a nice guy. It’s true. I can be very nice and then suddenly I can be . . . when I get upset I can explode. The thing is, I’m aware of it and normally I control my emotions. Before PSV Eindhoven where he was sent off for two yellow cards last month I was sent off only once for a tackle from behind against Marcelo Salas playing for Cameroon.”
Lauren quit international football after the last World Cup, disgusted by the Cameroon FA’s lack of organisation, and though he returned to play for his country last summer, he is reconsidering his position. Winfried Schaefer was sacked as Cameroon coach amid chaotic circumstances last month. “The problem was not the coach,” says Lauren, shaking his head. Does he wish he instead played for Spain? “No. I’ve played in two World Cups and Cameroon has opened doors for me, so it was the right choice.”
He recalls how, when he started playing for the country, he could not speak its national language, French, and needed the help of roommate Samuel Eto’o to communicate. People at Arsenal talk of Lauren’s role in helping young Fabregas and Jose Antonio Reyes adjust to England. He is regarded as the “daddy” of the club’s growing Spanish-speaking community, which includes Manuel Almunia and Philippe Senderos.
“Sometimes we get together and have Spanish food. Twice I’ve invited them to my house for a dinner party. I was at Sevilla at the same time as Jose, when he was a little boy. He and Cesc are unbelievable. They’ve so much natural talent and composure for players so young. They play like they’ve been professionals for 15 years. The crowd and the atmosphere — they don’t care, they play like they’re playing in the park!”
SOON after joining Arsenal, Lauren went off to Sydney and returned an Olympic champion, playing a huge part in Cameroon’s triumph by scoring an 89th-minute penalty to give his country victory in their semi-final with Chile, and converting in a shoot-out in the final versus Spain. Before arriving back in London he stopped off in Andalucia, where his father lay seriously ill.
“I went to show my father my medal. He had cancer of the liver, but now it’s okay. He’s recovered very well, though he had to stop working. He’s a difficult man, but I know he’s proud of me. He knows I’ve done well in my career and I didn’t forget about my brothers. I’ve helped all of them (financially) and he is proud of that.”
Has he admitted he was wrong to try to discourage his son from becoming a footballer? “No. He’s never said that, because he’s a hard, traditional man, so he can’t say sorry.” This time the smile mushrooms into a massive laugh.
In July, Lauren became a father himself, when Monica gave birth to daughter, Aliah. Arsenal were at their summer training camp in Austria, and on the evening Monica’s labour started, the ever-solicitous Wenger offered to arrange a private jet to take him to her bedside. “I decided to wait until morning and flew to London and I was there, I saw her come out. It was fantastic. The best experience of my life.”
I wonder what kind of parent “Low” will be. “It’s difficult to say, but I will be soft,” he says. “That will be my problem, because I’m very soft with my friends, my brothers, all my family. They can wrap me around their fingers.”
I suggest Monica might be the one to dispense discipline. “Possibly,” he says, unconvinced, and pauses to picture little Aliah. And all the lights in the house suddenly switch on again.