YOU ASK THE QUESTIONS

MICHAEL LAUDRUP

“I called my father-in-law from the Virgin Islands to ask the score in the Euro 92 Final. It wouldn’t have been fair if I’d played that game”

Interview Arthur Renard

The day has only just begun, early in the morning at a boutique hotel in central London, but Michael Laudrup is sat in front of FourFourTwo, animatedly explaining the mechanisms behind Barcelona’s Dream Team of the ’80s and ’90s. The playmaker helped the club lift its first European Cup, but it was the total football style of Johan Cruyff’s side that captured the world’s imagination.

“I’d start as a number nine, then drop back into midfield to receive the ball between the lines,” Laudrup says. “Opposition defenders usually stayed deep, which gave me space. From there, I could feed Txiki Begiristain, Jose Mari Bakero and Hristo Stoichkov, making intelligent runs through the defence.”

Sitting in a plush armchair, the Dane is using his hands to illustrate how those moves unfolded – how through balls and no-look passes created countless dangerous situations. “We scored so many goals that way,” the 61-year-old enthuses.

Later, he’d showcase the same skills at Real Madrid – bagging a fifth consecutive La Liga title, after four in a row with Barça. Remarkably, he’s loved by fans of both El Clasico rivals.

Laudrup was also key to the Danish Dynamite national team born in the mid-1980s – even if he famously decided to miss his country’s successful Euro 92 campaign. A managerial career followed, winning the League Cup with Swansea in 2013, but it all began back in Copenhagen, in a close-knit football family…

You and your younger brother Brian grew up to become two of the world’s best players. As children, was it always clear how special you were on the pitch?

Nathan Gent, via Facebook

No, we never felt like we should be footballers, even though our father played professionally for a few years in Austria, but he didn’t like living abroad. Also back then, if you went to play abroad and became a professional, they wouldn’t allow you to play for the national team. As a young teenager, I never really thought about becoming a professional player and there was never any competition with Brian, also because he’s five years younger. When we played together in the national team, it was great and also a bit strange at first, as we have some similar movements. Watching him, it was like seeing myself in a mirror.

What was it like to start your career at KB and Brondby, both clubs that your father had played for?

Jacob Brodersen, Odense

It was great and there was actually one game where I played with my father at Brondby. It was a friendly competition between four teams from Copenhagen and we played together in the first game – after five minutes, my father played a fantastic long ball and I scored from his pass! In my last year in Denmark, the 1982-83 season, I started to attract interest from foreign clubs. In the papers it was mentioned that scouts from Ajax, Liverpool and Juventus were watching me, and only then did it sink in that I could have an international career. Suddenly I realised it was more a question of when rather than if I’d move abroad to play.

Is it true that you almost signed for Liverpool in 1983?

Martin Gray, via Instagram

Yes, that’s true. I liked Liverpool as I was watching them in the 1970s – English football was on Danish TV. It was great when they invited me over there for a meeting – I went with my father and they proposed a three-year contract, to which we agreed. Once we were back in Denmark I started telling people that I was going to Liverpool. Around two weeks later, they contacted my father and said, “We’ve been talking about it internally and given that Michael’s very young, we think he needs a season to adapt, so we think we should make it a three-plus-one contract – four years in total.” My father said that was OK, but Liverpool then told him it would be for the same terms as the previously agreed three-year deal. I was keen to join them as Liverpool were one of the best sides in Europe at the time, but I felt it wasn’t fair. I agreed that I needed some time to adapt, but then we should make a new arrangement. They probably assumed that I’d sign anyway. What they didn’t know was that my father’s old coach was a friend of the president of Juventus, and they also wanted me. They said, “We’ll give you a four-year contract, where you’ll stay at Brondby for one season before coming to us in Turin.” I was fine with that arrangement and signed. I never came close to joining another English team, but I have no regrets about it, I’m happy with how my career turned out.