Julien Faubert's agent Yvan Le Mee has revealed the story behind the West Ham flop's shock move to Real Madrid and how two games against Spurs sealed the deal.
With only two days remaining of the 2009 January transfer window, the Spanish giants reached out to Le Mee to sign Faubert.
The Frenchman hadn't exactly set the world alight at West Ham, with his agent even admitting his surprise to hear of the interest from Los Blancos.
'I called a friend in Spain,' recalled Le Mée. 'I said: "Look, somebody from Real Madrid called me about Faubert. It's so strange."
'He called the sports director to check and phoned me back. "Yvan, it's true. They want to see you at 7 am tomorrow at Heathrow airport".'
While Faubert explained how he was equally as surprised to hear from Real Madrid and even rejected their initial call.
'I received a call from this French guy at Real Madrid, and he said to me, "Hi, I work for Real Madrid, and we have to talk to you"', he told The Athletic.
'I told him I have an important game to prepare for and I don't have time for this bulls****. I switched off my phone, we played the game, and after the match I switched on my phone and saw around 30 text messages and 50 voicemails.
'That's when I knew it was serious.'
Madrid had been searching for a right winger during the transfer window and were linked with the likes of Jermaine Pennant, Aaron Lennon and Antonio Valencia. However, they decided to have settled for Faubert.
'Real Madrid wanted to sign Antonio Valencia, but Wigan wanted £25m, which is like £80m in today's market,' Le Mée says.
'The second option was Faubert, the manager's choice. Juande Ramos had been at Tottenham the year before, and Julien played two fantastic games against them for West Ham. That was the reason he got this chance – sometimes miracles can happen.'
Faubert joined West Ham in 2007 from Bordeaux on a five-year contract for a reported £6.1m but soon suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon, which left him on the sidelines for the first half of last season.
However he returned at the beginning of 2008 and completed an average season with the club despite the Hammers finishing in the top half of the table.
Despite a poor campaign as West Ham, Le Mee said that the chief executive Scott Duxbury and sporting director Gianluca Nani demanded a lot during transfer talks negotiations with Real Madrid.
'At that point, I started to negotiate with West Ham,' Le Mée says. 'At the time it was chief executive Scott Duxbury and sporting director Gianluca Nani who was in charge of transfers and they were very tough negotiators.
'They wanted a lot of money because it was Real Madrid, even if he wasn't playing much at the time, but we managed to make the deal.
'For a few weeks, everybody was calling me David Copperfield because they couldn't believe it had happened.'
West Ham eventually received £1.5m for the loan as Madrid also included an option to sign Faubert on a three-year contract, although that never materialised.
The Frenchman made only two appearances – 54 minutes of football - and became infamous for missing training after thinking he had the day off and apparently nodding off on the bench during a bizarre six-month loan spell at the Bernabeu.
Though he insists he did not fall asleep during the clash against Villarreal and has instead closed eye due to boredom.
Faubert returned to the Hammers for the 2009-10 season and stayed for another three seasons, even helping them back into the Premier League after their 2011 relegation.
Faubert was later released from West Ham after making 103 appearances for the club in the Premier League.
He has since completed a short spell in Turkey with Elazigspor, returned to Bordeaux for a second time and appeared for Kilmarnock, Inter Turku and Indonesia with Borneo.
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