'Jude called me 'legend' and gave me his shirt… but I hope he gets beat!': PAUL LAMBERT on final showdown and his journey from free agent to Champions League hero with Dortmund

Paul Lambert was back in Dortmund to watch his old team a few years ago when he received a text message from Jude Bellingham. The younger man wanted to give the Champions League winner his jersey after the game.

‘We met up and he had his shirt for me, which was lovely,’ begins Lambert. ‘It was soaking wet. I said to him, “Jude, you know the secret of being a top player? You don’t sweat!”. He laughed, we had a chat and got a picture. He’d said to me, “All right, legend”. 

'I’m not one for all that, really. But I just thought he was a brilliant kid. I’d watched them train the day before and phoned my pal straight away. “I’ve just seen two young lads,” I told him. “Haaland and Bellingham. They’re going to be superstars!”.’

That brilliant kid has since become that superstar and, on Saturday at Wembley in the colours of Real Madrid, he will aim to join Lambert and a unique band of Brits — Steve McManaman, Owen Hargreaves and Gareth Bale — who’ve won the Champions League with foreign clubs. Oh, and it’s Borussia Dortmund in opposition.

As much as Lambert admires Bellingham, the former midfielder will be among the bricks of the Yellow Wall in London. Surely Real win though, right?

‘No!’ says the Scot. ‘Look at my time, in 1997, everyone was on Juventus to win. This time, everyone is on Real. I also think fate is a great thing. On the last day of last season, Dortmund lost the league. I was at Parkhead watching Celtic and my daughter was giving me updates. I thought she was joking when she said they were losing 2-0 to Mainz. Jude was part of that squad. A year later, against Jude in the final, it’s in the stars for them to win it.

‘They’ve also been written off since the start. The Group of Death and then Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain in the knockouts. They’ve always found a way. With that crowd behind them, and I’ll be part of it, I’m going 3-2 Dortmund in a classic!’

If Dortmund’s journey to this final is storied and heroic, it still does not compare to that of Lambert’s own odyssey from unknown and unemployed to Champions League winner in just 10 months.

It is remarkable that the tale has never been dramatised on screen — ‘Martin Compston could play me, I think’ — but at least that means Lambert can relive his adventure with us.

He is en route to Glasgow for a Celtic versus Dortmund legends match when we meet at Close House Golf Club on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. He prefers the Yellow Wall. It is, though, a golf club to the stars, including Alan Shearer and Lee Westwood. 

While we chat, a member of Take That is having coffee nearby. Former Newcastle favourite Steve Watson also wanders in, but later says: ‘I didn’t want to interrupt, Lambo was in full flow!’ Little wonder, none of the above have a story like this. It is one of implausible odds, beginning in the summer of 1996. So, who and what was Paul Lambert back then?

‘Skint, for starters!’ he says. ‘I was actually tapping my mum and dad for a few quid. My dad was a roof tiler and my mum a housewife — and their son, the footballer, is asking them for money!’

Lambert was 26 and, having made his senior debut aged 15 with St Mirren, was 12 seasons into a career spent exclusively in Scotland. But out of contract at Motherwell — Bosman free transfers had just been introduced — he decided to ‘toss a coin in the air’.

His team-mate, Rob McKinnon, had left Motherwell to sign for Twente in the Netherlands and he knew an agent who could get him some trials. Packing his boots, and with a couple of quid from mum and dad in his back pocket, Lambert flew from Glasgow to Amsterdam and caught a train to Enschede to meet Ton van Dalen, the chain-smoking Dutchman who would change his life. He’d arranged a trial at PSV Eindhoven, who had just sold Ronaldo to Barcelona.

‘They needed some speed up front and Dick Advocaat played me right wing. I was never a quick winger…’

You were never a quick midfielder, Paul. He laughs, thankfully. ‘Exactly! I should have seen that coming… But, stupidly enough, I scored two goals from the wing and did OK. I knew, though, I wasn’t what Dick was looking for. That was fair enough.’

Back in the car with Van Dalen, his nicotine-stained paws found top gear and the autobahns of Germany. Dortmund was their next destination. ‘What, for a holiday?’ asked Lambert. All the while, he had his head out of the window in search of fresh air.

At the Westfalenstadion, they met Dortmund chief Michael Meier. ‘I didn’t understand a word but, after 20 minutes, they gave me a bit of paper and said, “That’s the contract. Do well, it’s yours — if not, you’re heading home”.

‘I thanked Mr Meier and said, “But here’s the thing, I’ve got no money. Motherwell don’t even know I’m here”. He said, “There’s 200 Marks. If you sign, give me it back. If you don’t, don’t worry about it”. I knew then I only had a few days to prove myself.’

The team were due to land in Lubeck four hours north of Dortmund and Lambert was instructed to meet them. ‘I’ve never been outside of Glasgow, how do I get there?’ he asked. A driver arrived and so, in a top-of-the-range Mercedes, he was back on the autobahn. ‘This guy, Walter Maahs — he’s only about five feet tall — told me he could get us there in two hours,’ says Lambert. ‘I still joke with him now — my knuckles were white, he was like Lewis Hamilton! We got there and I saw thousands of yellow and black waiting to meet the team off the plane. I thought, “I’m out of my depth here”.

‘I got on the bus and it was full of European Championship and World Cup winners. I tried about five seats, “You can’t sit there, that’s such and such’s seat”. It’s intimidating. But then, on the pitch, you click into gear. This was my chance, I had to take it.’

Four trial games later and, with Ottmar Hitzfeld having swiftly converted Lambert from an attacking midfielder into a holder, the manager told him he had done enough to win a place as a squad player. ‘Fine by me!’ said Lambert.

To his surprise, he started the first game of the season. ‘A disaster, really. We got beat 4-2 at Leverkusen and I was all over the place. But then, at home to Dusseldorf, we won 4-0 and I set up two. Everything went my way. They had just signed Paulo Sousa from Juventus and we had Karl-Heinz Riedle and Stephane Chapuisat coming off the bench. I thought, “I need to be right on it here”. I told myself I wasn’t coming out of the team.’

So, how did Lambert go from sidekick of Billy Davies at Motherwell to starting alongside the likes of Sousa, Andy Moller and Matthias Sammer, who would win the Ballon d’Or that year?

‘Within weeks I had changed as a player and person. That growth would have taken me years in Scotland. All of a sudden, I had unbelievable confidence. That came from those in the dressing room. I used to see it in them.

‘I became Germanised. I wrote everything down — what we did in training, what I ate, the vitamins, how we played. I was with the best, so I had to be the best, I had to be like them. Once I hit that level, I thought, “That’s it, I ain’t coming down from here”.’

And he didn’t. Come April, there was a Champions League semi-final against Manchester United and Roy Keane, who would later be Lambert’s assistant at Aston Villa. ‘I was established by then and couldn’t give a s*** who I was up against. With Roy, it never fazed me. I was away from the hype around United. I didn’t care what they thought of me, I knew I was in a strong team.’

Dortmund won 1-0 in both legs to set up the final against holders Juventus in Munich. This time, it was Zinedine Zidane in opposition. ‘You don’t realise how big he is until you’re in the tunnel. But he was so graceful, he could sway and glide both ways. We knew he could hurt us. We kicked off and Paulo realised Zidane was on his side. “Paul, let’s change it!” he said. So we did. People say, “Get tight”. You had to be like a fur jacket on Zidane!’

But it was Juventus worrying about Lambert when his cross created the opening goal for Riedle in the 29th minute. The Germany striker soon headed a second and, after Alessandro Del Piero pulled one back, substitute Lars Ricken made it 3-1 with his first touch. The man-of-the-match, however, was Lambert.

In the dressing room afterwards, Riedle came good on an earlier promise and gave Lambert his Rolex. ‘He was getting f*** all off me, I’m from Glasgow!’

More recently, in a text exchange with Lambert, Moller wrote: ‘I wouldn’t have been the same player that season if you weren’t behind me.’

The attacking midfielder had scored the winning penalty in the semi-final shootout against England at Euro 96 the previous summer, so it’s little wonder they became good friends.

‘Andy was rapid, at everything he did. We became team-mates and competitors. Every day, before training, we’d go to the basement and play head tennis. We’d come back up after an hour, dripping with sweat. But if ever there was an easy job in football, it was get it and give it to Andy and let him do his stuff.’

While Riedle — his friend to this day — got nothing in return, Lambert did settle with his mum and dad. ‘They’ve been well looked after! I’m so glad they’re still here and that I’m so close to them. And to have them at the game in Munich was special.

‘They were more emotional than me and came running down to the front. I couldn’t give them a hug, I could only touch their hands through the railings. My mum was wearing a Juventus scarf, believe it or not. An Italian asked to swap with her. I’ve got my jersey in a frame with that scarf. They were so proud.’

There was another person somewhere in Lambert’s thoughts that night, but it took 25 years to track him down. That was Jean-Marc Bosman, the Belgian footballer who fought through the European Court of Justice to allow the free movement of players at the end of their contract. A documentary in 2020 revealed how his life had descended into alcoholism and poverty.

‘I watched the documentary and found it really sad,’ says Lambert. ‘I thought, “I need to speak to this guy”. I managed to arrange a Zoom call and he was brilliant. I explained my story and how, without him, it would not have been possible. I told him I realised how low he had been. I thanked him for everything. He never gets the recognition he deserves. I thought, “I want to make a point of doing that”. I’m glad I did.’

By November of the following season, Lambert was on the move again, to Celtic for £2million. He is a dad of four now but, at the time, his first born, Christopher, was suffering febrile convulsions. The family were told the condition would last around five years and decided they needed to be closer to home and the hospitals in Glasgow.

Lambert’s 65th and final game for Dortmund was against Parma in the Champions League. The Yellow Wall serenaded him long after full time and his car was draped in yellow and black with the message, ‘Please don’t go’. There is a star with Lambert’s name on the pavement near the stadium today.

‘Leaving was the hardest thing I ever did in football. Did it break my heart? One hundred per cent. Could I kick a ball for Celtic for two months? No, I was all over the place. I thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. But I look at my son now and think, “No, I did the right thing”. He was the most important thing to me.’

My own son, who is eight, heard me making arrangements to meet Lambert last week and mentioned seeing a feature about him on TV before Dortmund’s semi-final with PSG. He wanted to come along — school got in the way of that — so instead recorded a question. What was it like winning the Champions League with a team everyone thought would lose?

‘We didn’t think we’d lose, that’s why we won!’ he replied in a video, with a message from which the current vintage can take heart.

It was then much appreciated when Lambert brought with him a Dortmund jersey for my son, which he wore in a recent legends match. Unwashed but dry and fresh, it was proof that the best players really don’t need to sweat.