'There's only one 46...' - how pre-season trialist Bassong made name for himself | OneFootball

"There’s only one 46," came a unified cry. "46, 46, give us a wave," swiftly followed. Out on the pitch, a then 22-year-old Sebastian Bassong had no clue that the Geordie songbook was centred on him. Post-match, Steven Taylor explained all. "I couldn't even understand English, let alone Geordie," Bassong recalls. "I didn't show it, but I was so happy that I made an impression on the fans. They were singing about me without even knowing who I was - I realised things looked good."

Doncaster's ground, which had only recently replaced the unloved yet loveable Belle Vue, was only two-thirds full. The game meant nothing. And yet. "It was the most important game of my whole career," Bassong says definitively. "Getting on the bus, changing with the team, the whole thing was super special. I'm thinking 'you can't mess this up'."

But Bassong's first game in England started poorly. "I got bullied by a striker who was maybe 5ft 8ins - I'm 6ft 3ins," he says of James Hayter, a forward whose Football League career spanned nearly 500 games for a respectable, if not prolific, return of 129 goals across spells at Rovers, Bournemouth and Yeovil Town.

"The first aerial ball, he came across me with his body and put me on the floor. Kevin Keegan shouted 'kid, stronger!". I didn't understand. The same happened the next ball and I ended up on the floor. I was supposed to be good in the air, and Kevin on the side went mad. 'F***ing stronger.'

"The third ball I went into the challenge like an animal, with my knees, my elbows. I won the ball and looked at the ref who said, 'play on.' I looked left to Kevin like a kid seeking approval and he shouted, 'there you go, that's what I'm talking about.' That moment was pivotal, something clicked, and I grasped what English football was about."

The Doncaster trip was the end of a week-long trial. By then, Bassong was a France under-21 international and had played 79 times for Metz in Ligue 1. He was a smooth operator at centre-half, a modern, ball-playing defender before they were properly in vogue, and he had gas to burn.

Early in the 2008 summer, his agent told him Keegan wanted him at Newcastle. But there was a twist, and Bassong's representative was unsure how his client's ego would react to being told he'd need to prove his worth. "He didn't tell me it was a trial," Bassong recalls laughing. "He told me, 'they aren't sure, they want to see how you'd fit and adapt to the English culture and English football blah, blah, blah.' I laughed and said 'just spit it out, it's a trial. No worries I'll go.'."

With the blessing of Metz's president, Bassong flew to Newcastle and on landing was whisked straight to Hartlepool's Victoria Park where his colleagues-to-be were playing their first friendly of the summer. "I had no clue where I was going, but it was p*ssing down and windy. I was soaked, and I needed a hot drink. When I ordered tea at the bar, they put milk in it. That was my first encounter with English culture. My God, it was horrendous."

The weather was little better when Bassong rocked up at Darsley Park the following morning. However, his mood quickly lightened. "I would love to have a video of the moment I first put the Newcastle training kit on," he says. "I was so, so happy. Coming from where I come from, and to now actually be wearing a Newcastle kit, that was one of my best moments."

With a first team rest day scheduled, coach Chris Hughton had a one-to-one taster session planned for Bassong "It was a tester. Long balls, headers. I had to turn run, slide tackle and get up. It was difficult because it was raining, windy, and I only had a t-shirt on. I'm thinking 'what is going on here?' - it wasn't the kind of test I'd expected to showcase my footballing ability, but I was prepared psychologically to do anything it took."

Hughton green-lit Bassong, and a sleep later he joined the squad. As Michael Owen, Nicky Butt and Mark Viduka rolled into their nearby pews, Bassong silently took it all in. "I used to play as Michael on FIFA, and now I'm in the same dressing room as him," he says, a giddiness to his voice suggesting he is reliving the moment again.

Bassong's English was basic, but French speakers Habib Beye and Charles N'Zogbia were around. However, with just days to impress, his focus was purely on "the green rectangle. I was there to kill, and I think the squad realised that quickly. (Alan) Smith tried to bully me - I think that was also a test - because he came in from behind. I'd won a tackle and was about to get a pass off when he came from behind, lifted me up, and then stared at me on the floor. I thought 'okay, no worries.' The next opportunity I got, I gave it back to him and people where a bit like 'whoa,' but they didn't say anything. I think that earned me a bit of respect. People thought 'that kid is not scared'."

Following Bassong's Doncaster appearance he waited to hear about a deal. Silence. So, he headed home, only to receive an earful from his agent as he landed at Charles de Gaulle airport. With a three-year contract on the table, Bassong returned to Tyneside, almost missing his flight owing to a relaxed attitude to boarding times.

As a young man about to transfer to the golden-paved Premier League, Bassong expected to get rich. He was disappointed, then, when director of football Dennis Wise offered a figure slightly below his current Metz salary. "Wise wrote down the whole centre-back list, and I was number six. He said, ‘take it or leave it'."

An incensed Bassong felt disrespected and was "young and crazy." He called his dad who "started to poke me. He said 'what I'm hearing is someone moaning and crying like a baby. You told me you were the best. If you're the best, prove it.' He told me I was wasting his time and hung up on me. I got even angrier, and that is how I signed my contract. I didn't do any pictures - you won't be able to find any of me signing or holding my shirt - and I threw the contract back at Dennis Wise. He laughed and I left the room. I said to my agent, 'if I'm not the best player at this club by the end of the season, I'm not my dad's son.'

"I thank Dennis to this day for triggering something in me. If he hadn't done that, I don't think I'd have performed the way I performed. I was so angry, so focussed, I had tunnel vision."

Bassong found himself adapting to a new team, a new language, a new culture, a Newcastle. Exactly a month after his Doncaster outing, Keegan started him alongside fellow new recruit Fabricio Coloccini for a Carling Cup trip to Coventry. Having taken a 2-0 lead, United eventually triumphed 3-2 courtesy of Owen's extra-time winner. Four days later - during which time James Milner had been sold to Aston Villa and David Ginola had returned to St. James' Park to launch his own rosé - United visited the Emirates, with Bassong named in reserve. Already mired by injuries - Coloccini and Habib Beye both started despite being doubts - Keegan was dealt a further blow when Jose Enrique's hamstrung popped late in the first half. Enter Bassong, this time clad in black and white and wearing 12.

"I didn't want to get on the pitch," a grinning Bassong explains. "Kevin sent us all out to warm up but for me I'm like a tourist. This is a dream. I'm not even thinking about warming up as a player, I'm just soaking it all in. Then I see Kevin look towards all of us and I hear him shout 'come.' I'm looking around thinking he can't be talking to me. But then I realised, and I said, 'oh Seb, this is real'."

Emotions coursing to every extremity, Bassong stepped onto the Emirates pitch. When he passed Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor, whom Bassong knew from their time at Metz, "he slapped the back of my head and said to me 'what are you doing here?'. I laughed and replied, 'I don't know.'"

Bassong's fear clearly showed, and Keegan got a message to him via Beye during the interval. The manager wanted to see the Bassong he had selected based on training, not a timid defender afraid of his own shadow. He improved post-break, but United still surrendered meekly.

Unbeknownst to him, Bassong had jumped headlong into a smelting pot of discontent. His home debut - a 2-1 defeat to Hull City - was marred by supporter protests, and Keegan, the manager who had enticed him to leave his homeland, soon departed.

"I was aware of what was happening, but as a young lad, honestly, I couldn't care less," he says. "I wasn't experienced enough. I was so innocent, and I couldn't understand why it was such a thing. Because of where I'm from, I focussed so much on what was in front of me. I had so much to take care of with myself, my own situation. Later in my career, because of the responsibilities, I would have been more conscious of it. But all I was focused on was the pitch."

***

Bassong was born and raised in Épinay-sur-Sein, a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of northern Paris. The area is notorious both for its rate of violent crime and poverty. As Thierry Henry put it before the 2022 Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid, "be careful, the stadium is in Saint-Denis, not in Paris. It's near Paris but trust me you don't want to be in Saint-Denis."

"It was tough," Bassong admits. "I love my neighbourhood because this is where I'm from and it gave me my character. It gave me a lot of values, resilience, hardness." Despite the Stade de France's proximity, football was not always part of Bassong's life; he turned to it because it was the only way his parents would allow him and his brother to leave the house outside of school hours. Bassong's talent was immediately apparent, and the Clairefontaine academy soon entered the conversation. Spotted by scouts playing for his district, a 12-year-old Bassong made the 90-minute journey alone for several rounds of trials because of his dad's work commitments. Eventually after a three-day camp, the treks paid off and life shifted completely. Suddenly, Bassong was living with footballing peers, attending a local school with them, training for several hours, sitting down for dinner before studying until lights out. Rinse and repeat. He learned both his "football IQ" and "life values" at Clairefontaine. "For example, when you shake people's hand, you got to look at them in the eye. There's so much discipline and value that they're teaching you that I'm still passing on those values to my kids." He chuckles merrily when explaining those in English dressing rooms found the handshaking weird.

Bassong describes Clairefontaine as "like a brotherhood. Whether you spent time with people when you were there or not, you are all kind of tattooed." One of those Bassong did spend time with was Hatem Ben Arfa, with whom he formed a "bond that is unbreakable."

"Hatem used to be - and I can talk in the past tense - as good as Lionel Messi for me in terms of ability. Hatem is the most gifted player that I have ever, ever seen. He is a genius, but every genius is kind of a weirdo. They're wired and built in such a way that sometimes you can't really understand them.

"On and off the pitch, I've never seen anything like it. Hatem used to dribble past two or three defenders, dribble past the keeper, come back, change the angle, make defenders bump into each other and laugh.

"Off the pitch, he was a very stubborn, stupid and crazy kid, which made him so special and so lovable. He doesn't take anything seriously and didn't understand pressure."

Bassong cites a game on Tyneside in October 2011 by way of example. He was at Tottenham by then and Ben Arfa was at United. Introduced as a late substitute with his team trailing, Ben Arfa's attention was misplaced.

"His only focus was to work me," Bassong explains. "He said to me, 'oh, I'm going to kill you.' I said, 'Hatem, stop that. Play seriously.' But he's such a kid. He said, 'do you remember what we used to do when we were back in Clairefontaine? I'm going to do you the same.'

"I'm not supposed to say anything, but he's my brother and I knew he was being counterproductive for his team. Alan Pardew was on the side going mad. Hatem couldn't hear anything. All he cared about was me. That's it. I wanted to slap him That was Hatem. Maybe one of the greatest geniuses with the ball. But I think his mentality didn't match."

Two years into his scheduled three at Clairefontaine, Bassong was released. "I cried when I heard the news, I was devastated," he recalls solemnly. For a teenager such a blow is devastating. "That's one of the worst, most heartbreaking moments that I have had in my life. It shaped me early on. I said to myself, 'I can't go through that kind of pain again in my life.'"

***

Six years later Bassong was at Newcastle, England stars Owen and Nicky Butt pressing his case to Keegan. Bassong recalls fondly a conversation with Keegan that took place in Floritas during a pre-2008/09 season evening out. "He said to me, 'listen, give 100% all the time - that's all I'm asking you. I don't ask you to be the best all the time, but if you give everything every time you step on that pitch, I'm going to love you, and the fans are going to love you.'"

Keegan's departure so soon after his arrival was a blow (Bassong uses far stronger French to describe the loss). But while he will forever owe Keegan a debt, he was "so much on a mission that I couldn't even get sidetracked because some of the plan was derailed. Regardless of what was going to happen, I was going to carry on and keep going forward."

The late Joe Kinnear's reign was short-lived and "a shambles". The training was sub-par, the manager getting players' names wrong and a first away Tyne-Wear derby defeat in almost three decades hardly helped. Yet goosepimples still rise on Bassong when he recalls the intensity of the Sunderland clash. "I was a young kid who wanted to impress," he says. "I'm thinking 'okay, I'm going to smash a couple of Mackems and the fans will love it. Kenwyne Jones and I had a 50-50 challenge, one of those where you both come at full pace, and neither is going to stop. It played out in slow motion in my head. We both went to the ball like gladiators. I smashed him with everything I had, and there was a knee collision. He stayed down, but I had to get up like nothing had happened. I was in so much pain, but I got up like a gladiator in my own arena. I wanted to be substituted, but the way the away fans cheered for me, it was like I had scored a hat-trick."

United's season got little easier. In late January, both Shay Given and Charles N’Zogbia departed. The latter went to Wigan, with Ryan Taylor making the opposite trip. Kevin Nolan and Peter Lovenkrands were both added as United attempted to add a touch more grit.

By an early February 2009 trip to West Brom, Newcastle had won just five of 24 league games, sitting just two points clear of their bottom-of-the-table hosts. On the morning of the game, Kinnear fell ill - he would undergo triple heart bypass surgery days later and would not return to United - but despite his absence a 3-2 victory brought renewed hope.

Alas, it was short-lived. By April Fools' Day just two more points had been added. Eight games remained and United were two points from safety. Then came the adrenaline shot of all adrenaline shots, the boost that surely would save the club's Premier League status: Alan Shearer became the fourth man to tread the technical area that season. From day one, Bassong loved his new boss.

"I'm a street guy, let's put it this way," he says smirking. "I grew up in a rough environment. Alan is a rough guy too. At training, when somebody was missing, he was the first to put the bib on. The player mentality remained in him.

"I said to him one day 'if you put a bib on, you're another player. Gaffer, I respect you, but if I've got to lift you up, I'll lift you up' and he loved it.

"There was one duel where he ended up headbutting me in the face. Typical Alan Shearer play, right? I took it on the chin. I put him on the floor with the next one, and people were shocked. He got back up and shook my hand. He said he knew he could count on me."

Still the necessary results were lacking. Five more games; just two more points. Then one of those magical nights at the Cathedral on the Hill, a local derby against Middlesbrough where every visiting touch was met with guttural jeering. United won 3-1 and moved 17th, above Hull on goal difference with two to play.

"I thought we were going to stay up," Bassong admits. "That still hurts now. The season was exhausting emotionally with ups and downs, changes of manager, the protest - there was way too much. But we still managed to get into a situation where we thought 'we're going to make it'."

Next came Fulham at home. Bassong was dismissed for tripping Diomansy Kamara on the hour, and United lost 1-0. Obafemi Martins had wobbled the post from six yards early on, and Mark Viduka later had a goal disallowed because Kevin Nolan had supposedly fouled Mark Schwarzer. With VAR, the leveller would almost certainly have stood.

"I cried my eyes out in the dressing room," Bassong says. "It took me months to recover from that red card. I knew people were counting on me, but I had let my team down tremendously. I was so careless, so stupid."

Results elsewhere meant Newcastle's fate was in the hands of others. Despite being suspended for the final day trip to Aston Villa, Bassong entered the dressing room at half-time. "I had a go at everyone. We were in a desperate situation, and you don't have time to watch what you're going to say. It was an emergency, and in such situations, you act and make quick decisions, and then you care about ego and people's feelings afterwards. From the stand I could see the passion wasn't there for the situation we were in. We needed it to be like a cup final.

"I was also angry at myself so there were mixed-up emotions. Whether it was received well by the players or not, I couldn't care less."

United went down, and Bassong was coveted by other clubs. He was offered the captaincy to stay, but his condition was a different one. "My only request was that Alan stayed. If that had happened, I was staying." He and Shearer discussed it, and Shearer promised to keep him updated. Bassong had fallen in love with the club, the city and his neighbours who would regular make him dinner after games and training. But once Shearer knew he would not still be around, Bassong's future was sealed.

Shortly before he left for Tottenham, Bassong was fined for refusing to travel to a friendly at Dundee United. Does he regret his actions now? "Without being too clichéd, I don't regret anything in my life," he begins. "Everything that happened, I hold myself responsible. It was a good lesson. Doing things wrongly makes you become the man that you are because you learn. If everything was done perfectly, I would have taken no lessons. You only learn from your mistakes later."

Bassong was young, confused and, perhaps, naïve. Some advised him to train, others said don't and that the buying club would cover any fine. He received mixed signals from United, with them indicating they would sell him, then changing the price, then that he would not be leaving at all.

"If I could, I would have done it in a different way. I'm an emotional creature, and I hate letting people down. It was taken to the fans in a way that suggested I'd let them down. That's what I would have changed, the way it was taken to them."

Bassong went to White Hart Lane for a reported £8 million, scoring on his debut and scoring Tottenham's first Champions League goal in 2010. He had spells with Norwich, Wolves and Watford and won 15 caps for Cameroon.

These days Bassong works as a pundit, regularly covering the Champions League for African channels, winning plaudits for his non-robotic on-camera character "That is a secondary activity that keeps me connected to football, to the pitch. I'm doing it in such an authentic way. I can't really get put in a box. People say, 'oh this is how you should do it'; for me to be the best, I've to be myself. That's why I'm interacting with people in the way that I do and creating my own stuff. When you are authentic, things are always going to go down well."

Bassong's main passion, though, lies in coaching. Not football coaching, but performance transition coaching. "I love my job more than I love football, because now I can really have an impact on peoples' lives."

He works with group and individual clients in a variety of sectors, and, after some initial reluctance, he now assists several footballers, too. "At the start, it was difficult for me to work with football players. For the simple reason that I know the roadblocks and what I'm going to face. And I know the way they've been programmed by the system. From the age of 12, they've been moulded in a certain way.

"Because when you do that work, you need to get naked. You need to be you. You need to be so vulnerable to get where you want to get. You can't fake it. You can't hold back. You must be willing to do anything and to explore things that you’ve never done.

"I've got to concentrate on making sure that the youngster coming through, identity-wise, they know who they are. They know what they're made of, and they don't copy. That is what makes them a better person. And a better person makes a better footballer because they understand why they're acting like that."