Football's craziest transfers: Sleeping on the bench?! How Julien Faubert snoozed his way through a bizarre spell at Real Madrid

Real Madrid had built a rather strong squad for the 2008-09 season. The Spanish giants boasted the likes of Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Fabio Cannavaro, Raul, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Iker Casillas, Marcelo, Arjen Robben, Gonzalo Higuain, Wesley Sneijder, Guti, Gabriel Heinze and Javier Saviola in their ranks.

The pressure, then, was on coach Bernd Schuster to improve on the previous campaign's results as, despite having won La Liga, their last-16 Champions League elimination did not sit well with the club's hierarchy and fans, and much more was expected this time around.

By early-December, though, Madrid's season was almost in ruins. They sat fifth in the table after losing 4-3 to Sevilla, and with a Clasico against Barcelona up next, they could not risk the degradation continuing, so they sacked Schuster and brought in Juande Ramos.

He managed to turn things around – only after losing 2-0 to Barca – but it was clear the squad needed more work in January. And so, they dipped into the transfer market, signing Klaas-Jan Huntelaar from Ajax and Lassana Diarra from Portsmouth.

That, apparently, wasn’t enough, as the Bernabeu decision-makers decided to make one last signing on the final day of the transfer window – bringing in Faubert from West Ham. The Frenchman joined on an initial loan deal with an option to sign him to a three-year contract in the summer.

It was a bewildering transfer, sure, but an opportunity for the right-back to prove his worth and earn a tremendous step up to the biggest team on the planet. Did he seize the opportunity and make the most of it? Well, there’s a reason this isn’t the story of 'Julien Faubert, Real Madrid legend'.

Faubert was hardly a phenomenon for West Ham. Having struggled with injuries in his first season at Upton Park, he was not setting the world alight in his second. He started 15 of their 23 Premier League games in the first half of an inconsistent campaign under Alan Curbishley, who was later replaced by Gianfranco Zola. So, it's easy to understand why his own agent was confused when the Spanish giants came calling in January.

Yvan Le Mee later told the story: “I called a friend in Spain. 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 7am tomorrow at Heathrow airport’.”

Even Faubert was in disbelief. "We were on the team bus making our way to Upton Park to play Fulham," he said years later. "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.’ I told him I have an important game to prepare for and I don’t have time for this bullsh*t. 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.

"So I called my manager and he said to me we have to talk with Real Madrid because they are in a hotel at Heathrow. It was the last day of the transfer window and we went there and started to negotiate."

Even as the negotiations started, it was unclear if Madrid really wanted Faubert. They were hoping to sign Antonio Valencia, but were hesitant to meet Wigan’s £25 million demands. It was coach Ramos, fresh off of a spell at Tottenham, who had been pushing for them to sign Faubert instead after being impressed by him in the London derby matches against West Ham.

Soon, talks with Wigan over Valencia broke down and Faubert became the only option with the transfer window nearing its end, and a loan deal was arranged.

Even after Madrid confirmed the signing of Faubert, few could still believe it. The perplexing nature of the move is perfectly captured in Madrid icon and honorary president Alfredo Di Stefano’s utter shock as he stared at the new signing while holding up his shirt to present him to the press.

Faubert had come through the same youth academy as Madrid and Fance legend Zinedine Zidane, but no one was under any illusions that he would replicate his compatriot.

The full-back had to wait just over a week for his debut. He was named on the bench for a La Liga game against Racing Santander and replaced Robben for the final 30 minutes as Madrid went on to win 1-0. His performance did nothing to stun coach Ramos, though, as it would be over a month before he would play again – coming off the bench again to play 24 minutes in a 5-2 win against Athletic Club.

That would be his final appearance – 54 minutes in total, meaning Madrid paid €28,000 per minute considering the €1.5 million loan fee they spent to bring him in.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to show what I could do on the field. I worked hard, but Robben played in my position. A player who scored goals in every game,” Faubert said.

The shock of the move and his failures in the Spanish capital made Faubert a bit of a laughing stock. One criticism he received was that he was not fit enough to play for Los Blancos, which he explained away in hilarious fashion, saying: “I have never been a slim or slender player. I was in shape, it must be the colour of the white shirt that makes you gain weight!”

Things only got worse, though. He was left out of the squad for a game against Recreativo Huelva on a Saturday evening in April. When the team got together the next day for training, Faubert was nowhere to be seen, as he thought he had the day off.

“I always asked some player who spoke English or Lass Diarra what schedule we had and that time I left without asking. That went against me,” he said.

He ended up receiving a fine, even if Ramos did not take it too seriously. “The boy had a lapse, but nothing more,” he said. "He thought that Sunday was a day off, as was the natural rule . It was a lapse, and there is no problem.”

The comedy only increased from then, culminating in him being ridiculed for apparently falling asleep on the bench in a match against Villarreal. Faubert has always denied that his eyes were closed, but he did admit that he had such a relaxed, disinterested demeanour because he was “angry” that he would not get to play as the season neared its end.

The following week, his final game at the Bernabeu, fans held up a banner that read: "Thank you for everything, Faubert".

Despite Ramos lifting Madrid’s performances in La Liga, he could do nothing to prevent them crashing out of the Champions League at the last-16 stage yet again, losing 5-0 on aggregate to Liverpool. Nor could his side maintain their good form domestically, as they lost their last five matches – including a famous 6-2 defeat to Barcelona – and ended up finishing nine points adrift of Pep Guardiola’s title-winners.

Faubert, by then, had lost any hope of playing again for the Spanish champions and his time there ended without the club triggering their option to buy him. Although he made no serious impression there, Faubert does look back on the time at the Bernabeu with a smile.

“I learned a lot even if I didn’t play a lot. I learned the winning spirit," he said reflecting on the brief spell. "You play with guys who’ve won the World Cup, the Champions League, but they still want to win. Even if they play the bottom team in the table they want to win, they’re never bored of it.”

Ramos, the man who pushed the club to bring the full-back in, was let go that summer and replaced by Manuel Pellegrini. He ended up taking over at CSKA Moscow a few months later, but left after just 47 days in charge of the Russian outfit.

After his farcical time at Madrid, Faubert returned to London eager to take his West Ham career to a new level. He was immediately a key player under Zola, who guided them to a ninth-placed finish in Faubert's absence, but the Irons were unable to build on that promise.

The Frenchman, who later switched his international allegiance to Martinique, made 33 appearances as the Hammers avoided relegation to the Championship, finishing five points clear of the relegation zone. The following season, under Avram Grant and then Kevin Keen, they finished bottom and were relegated. Faubert, who played only nine times in the league that season, came away with a new enemy.

"That guy was so antisocial," he said of Grant. "He never spoke to us, he barely took charge of the training sessions because he was always in his office, his motivation was sh*t and I didn’t learn anything from him... I didn’t have a good relationship with him and we got relegated because of him. That season, he made so many poor decisions. It’s going to sound bad, but the season we got relegated it was inevitable."

Despite his struggles that year, Faubert stuck around to help West Ham fight for promotion back to the Premier League, which they managed by beating Blackpool in the play-off final.

From then on, it was a weird journey for Faubert, who left London to join Elazıgspor in Turkey but was released a few months into his three-year contract. He made a step up by returning to former club Bordeaux where he was in and out of the team until he left in the summer of 2015. The following February, he signed for Scottish side Kilmarnock, where he played just nine times, and then took in spells in Finland and Indonesia before taking on a player-assistant manager job in France's fourth-tier to close out his career.

His 18-year playing spell was a rollercoaster ride, and at its peak was a truly unique time at Real Madrid.