Bruno fights the red corner
Ben Lyttleton
WHEN Bruno Cheyrou was at Lille with his younger brother Benoit, the pair were often confused for each other. "They called me Bruno," laughed Benoit, "and they called him Benoit. Of course that annoyed us but we ended up turning it to our advantage. Sometimes I answered journalists’ questions which were meant for him just to get my revenge."
Benoit went to Liverpool during France’s winter break over Christmas to watch his brother’s team in training. It was when the Anfield club were in the middle of their Premiership 11-game winless slump, and he did not dare pretend he was Bruno.
After all, it was Bruno who was criticised after Liverpool’s FA Cup defeat to Crystal Palace (fans bombarded local radio stations wondering why Danny Murphy and not Cheyrou had been substituted) and it was also Bruno who earlier this month lost his place in the France national squad.
He was back in France with Liverpool on Thursday, but stayed on the bench in Liverpool’s 1-0 UEFA Cup win at Auxerre, which moved a step closer the mouthwatering prospect of a quarter-final against Celtic. This afternoon, he will face Birmingham in a game Liverpool must win if they want to play Champions League football next year.
"I thought my adaptation would be easier," Cheyrou conceded this week. "When you arrive, you say to yourself, ‘I know football, the ball is round and there’s no reason for things not to go well’. The truth is somewhat different. You have to almost start again from zero, learn a new type of football and get used to a new culture."
Perhaps Cheyrou was fooled after a successful debut in a pre-season friendly against Lazio, when fans in the Kop started chanting his name. "I almost fell over when I heard them," he laughed.
But he has never regretted his decision to turn down French champions Lyon in favour of Anfield. "In some ways Lyon may have been a more logical step in that it would have been taking one step forward rather than two. But when you’re a footballer you don’t have your whole life ahead of you and I think my choice shows how ambitious I am.
"Competition is tough at Liverpool, where we have about 25 players who are all internationals. It’s ferocious but I knew what I was doing when I joined. When I arrived, I was just a good player in the French league, not yet an inter-national player.
"Liverpool is a big step up and that’s helping to bring on my game. When you’re at a club like Liverpool, it’s all about winning and trophies. I want to score goals and mark the history of Anfield. I’m realistic and I know what I’m worth, and that my progression and the chance to realise and achieve my goals can only come through hard work.
"It shouldn’t be too difficult to improve my CV," he added, "seeing as until now, the only thing on it is that I was a champion of the French second division."
When Liverpool coach Gerard Houllier spent £3.7 million on the 24-year-old last summer he declared he was buying "someone who could play like Zinedine Zidane". What he didn’t say is that in 1997, Cheyrou was kicked out of the Lens youth academy and was lucky to find a club prepared to take him on.
That’s when Vahid Halilhodzic stepped in. The discipline-obsessed Bosnian gave Cheyrou a trial at second-division Lille and played him in central midfield. Three years later, the tiny northern French club were in the Champions League. "After my failure at Lens," said Cheyrou, "if Lille hadn’t opened their doors, I would have ended up as a used car salesman, a long way from my dreams. It just goes to show how thin the line is between success and failure. When you get an opportunity, you have to grab it.
"When I look back now, I can only be grateful to Vahid for the years I spent at Lille - even though we often clashed. When I joined, we were being called clowns; by the end, we were in the Champions League and there were 20,000 fans for every home game."
Halilhodzic explained: "I had to shake him up a lot, which he didn’t always appreciate. He used to get pissed off when I got angry with him. I found him too nonchalant at times and I did not want to see him waste his talent. He ended up understanding what I was getting at; you need to be able to suffer a lot to be able to succeed in this career. At first he wasn’t capable of it, but he dug in and he ended up succeeding.
"He has made an enormous progression since being dumped by Lens. I’m convinced that he possesses the individual technical ability to be in the France team. He has exceptional ball control and a fantastic left-foot shot. But he still needs to work to increase his aggression and develop a nastier side to his game.
"It’s fine to be cool in life but it’s a handicap on the field. He has chosen the best possible championship to progress, as England will give him another dimension."
Cheyrou agreed that he has struggled to cope with the physical demands of the Premiership. "It’s very different to in France. Here, every ball is a combat. Whether it’s a match or in training, the English always give their all. Sometimes, it’s wild. To impose your creativity, your technique, you first have to be able to resist the physical combat and to hold your own. On the field, my principal weakness is that I am too nice. That’s something I have to correct.
"Robert Pires is a model for me. It’s the enormous work that he put in that enabled him to overcome the nice guy tag. Maybe I’m still a bit tender - even when I get stuck in and give it my all, I don’t always come out on top. I need to be even more aggressive, almost nasty even."
Cheyrou is confident that he can ‘do a Pires’ and has already learnt some lessons from the Arsenal winger after spending time at Clairefontaine during the Euro 2004 qualifying matches in October. "There’s nothing better in the world than training with Zidane, Pires, and Henry. It’s a higher level than anywhere else and playing alongside them is like learning at the speed of light."
If he needs any more motivation, he only needs to look over his shoulder at the success of Benoit. The younger Cheyrou has won international honours at Under-18 and Under-20 level and is currently captain of the Under-21s. "I would have loved to have gone through the same path as him, playing for the national team at all those levels. If he carries on the way he’s going, he might even end up taking my place."
For now, Cheyrou is focused on keeping his place in the Liverpool side and improving enough to earn another France call-up for the March qualifiers. "Six years ago, I was thrown out of the academy at Lens and I had no place in the football world," he said.
"Today I’ve got two international caps, I’m playing for one of the biggest teams in Europe and we’re ahead against French opposition for a place in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. It’s a sweet revenge."
Even Benoit would agree with that.
