Every footballer has a story, but not many are quite as trippy as the one Luis Binks tells while sitting among the palm trees of La Manga, Scotland’s training headquarters for a few days this week.
At 25, the Brondby centre-half and captain is pushing hard for a Scotland debut against Slovenia on Saturday, a spot in the heart of Sebastien Pocognoli’s defence having opened up since Grant Hanley and John Souttar were jettisoned once the Belgian took over from Steve Clarke.
Binks, with a grandparent from Dunbar, is among the eight uncapped players in the new manager’s squad.
That’s a lot of new faces and a lot of new stories.
Binks talks about the early weeks of his time at Montreal Impact in the MLS; February to March, 2020. He was 18 and recalls: “I’d been at Tottenham since I was very young, but I just wanted to go and play first-team football.
“That was my biggest thing, to not get caught up in the whole youth system. I feel that if you get caught in that, it’s not real football. I wanted to test myself.”
Which brought him to Montreal where his manager was the great Thierry Henry.
“I’d signed in February and then we went into Covid lockdown in March,” Binks explains. “I hadn’t yet found an apartment. I was in one hotel and Thierry was in another. The one I was in was then shut down.
“He was staying at the Ritz on his own. They wanted to move me to a hotel by the airport and I didn’t want to go because there was nothing there. It felt like prison, almost. One day I get a call from him, saying: ‘Do you want to move to where I am? You can go on the other floor’.”
The Ritz-Carlton is a five-star retreat with 129 rooms. Henry and Binks were the only residents.
“I’d go for runs in the morning and he’d be sat in the reception on his own. When I’d get back from the run, he’d still be sat there. I’d spend a few hours with him, just trying to pick his brains.
“I remember one night I was sat in my room just playing PlayStation and he rings me and goes, ‘do you want to get a pizza?’. There’s me and him driving around Montreal looking for a pizza. It’s a bit surreal, but that was how it was.
“I’m saying it now like it’s just anybody, but there’s a big aura around him. I was nervous at the time, but I asked him who’s the best defender he’s played with and against and why and it was a good time.
“It’s a bit of a blur now, but I always remember him talking about Sol Campbell and just saying what made him great and how I could improve as a defender.
“I owe a lot to him because he gave me my first chance in senior football.”