The song they sing about him, even now, speaks of yearning and anguish, of knowing Newcastle United could be so much better if only they tried.
Yohan Cabaye personified the high-water mark of Mike Ashley’s ownership, the fulcrum of a team that finished fifth in the Premier League and then splintered, too gifted, too hungry for that version of St James’ Park, where ambition found little fertile ground and withered.
Don’t sell Cabaye,
Yohan Cabaye,
I just don’t think you understand …
February 24, 2013, a Sunday: Newcastle’s home match against Southampton is designated “French Day” by the club, with fans called upon “to don their berets and stripy T-shirts… as we celebrate the club’s Gallic contingent… in homage to Yohan Cabaye and Co.”
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There are can-can dancers and face-painters and La Marseillaise is sung before kick-off. The Strawberry pub on Gallowgate has been rechristened La Fraise.
Newcastle beat Southampton 4-2, but having failed to meaningfully strengthen their first-team squad the previous summer and stretched by their participation in the Europa League, they are flailing domestically. They finish 16th.
By the following August, Arsenal are bidding for Cabaye, who does not play in his team’s opening fixture after having “his head turned”, according to Alan Pardew, the manager. Five months later, it is au revoir.
’Cos if you sell Cabaye,
Yohan Cabaye,
You’re gonna have a riot on your hands.
October 4, 2023, a Wednesday: Welcome to French Day 2.0, a good deal less naff and pound-shop than the last one. Paris Saint-Germain, the club Cabaye left for almost 10 years ago, are in town tonight for St James’ first taste of the Champions League for two decades and it threatens damage to the eardrums.
In a nice little bit of symmetry, Cabaye is here, too, part of PSG’s backroom staff; it’s his first visit back, aside from the two post-PSG seasons when he played against them for Crystal Palace.
From the outside, the stadium has not changed very much but, in every other respect, Newcastle are transformed beyond recognition; no longer a club wrestling with itself, no longer the kind of club decent players know they will have to leave if they want to progress and improve.
“It was different at that time, a different project,” a 37-year-old Cabaye says now, and just how different, he is about to see first-hand.
Before that, Cabaye has business to attend to, south of the river. He will be watching on in Gateshead as PSG Under-19s face their Newcastle counterparts at 3pm — a game he really wants to win after defeat by Borussia Dortmund last time out.
The Cabaye of today focuses more on how players are forged and finessed. He was brought into PSG’s academy setup in 2021 by their former sporting director Leonardo, and today he is the assistant director, working with Luca Cattani.
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His role is to nurture the next generation of PSG talent, bringing kids through either to their first team or for careers elsewhere in the professional game. The target, he says, is to send players to the first team every summer.
“When Leonardo called me two years ago to give me the job, it was perfect,” says Cabaye. “I’m at the right place at the right time. The academy is more than an academy. We play (UEFA) Youth League every season, we have relationships with agents, and there are players of whom we expect big things. It’s a really good experience and, on top of that, we have the new training centre.”
PSG’s new training centre is already open for the men’s first team and they will be joined by Cabaye and the academy from January. It is a state-of-the-art structure, costing more than €300million (£260m; $314m) and will ensure, for the first time, that the PSG youth, men’s and women’s teams will be working at the same site.
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“It’s going to be something special,” he says. “We can work on our three pillars: sports side, school and social education. We want to develop players and very good human beings for the future too.”
It also means Cabaye has a front-row seat as PSG renew and adapt their sporting project. Young talent is seen as the cornerstone of that, illustrated by the youthful nature of their summer recruitment with signings such as Manuel Ugarte, Lee Kang-in and Goncalo Ramos (all aged 22). But there is also an emphasis on tapping into the wealth of talent within and around France’s capital city. It’s a competitive environment.
“We are lucky to have such a big pool,” says Cabaye. “On the other hand, the work is really hard for our scouting department. We have competition. Every French club tries to take the talent. We are lucky that we have a really good project for them.”
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The latest to break through is Warren Zaire-Emery, a 17-year-old midfielder who has featured in every game this season under new coach Luis Enrique. “He is a complete midfielder,” says Cabaye. “He can play in every team, in my opinion. Throw him on the field, he can play.”
Zaire-Emery’s progress is gold-dust for those running the academy. “The last couple of years, everyone thinks we didn’t see it, but the pathway always existed,” Cabaye says. “Warren has played well and a lot. He deserves it, I know his mentality.
“For us, that is something really helpful because we have an example (for the others). When we talk about Warren with the younger players, he puts the level really high in terms of the standards and what we expect in intensity, behaviour, in terms of professionalism. He is helping us a lot.”
For as much as Cabaye is invested in the next generation, the PSG academy is also a perfect learning environment for him. He recently passed his ‘General Manager’ diploma at the Centre for Sports Law and Economics in Limoges, in west-central France, a qualification previously studied for by both Zinedine Zidane and Laurent Blanc. He does not want to follow them into management, however. He has eyes on being a sporting director.
“I like to be involved in strategy,” he says. “I want to work with the coach, I want to create that team spirit. Maybe it’s the same when I was a player, I tried to do my best for the team, and I tried to play for my team-mates also. It’s a good conversion for a second career.”
His first career wasn’t too bad. He was 25 when he joined Newcastle on a five-year contract in the summer of 2011, fresh from winning the French league and cup double at Lille. Cabaye was already a senior France international at that point.
This was the spell when Ashley’s club — and their influential chief scout Graham Carr — prided themselves on cornering the market for young-ish, cheap-ish French players the bigger clubs may have passed on: Hatem Ben Arfa, Moussa Sissoko, Mathieu Debuchy, Sylvain Marveaux and others.
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In 2011-12, things clicked for Pardew’s team in the Premier League; maybe they had it sussed.
“We played to qualify for the Champions League,” Cabaye says, speaking over Zoom late last week. “I think the last two games we could have qualified, but unfortunately we lost them. ‘Pards’ and his staff did their best to bring the team as high (as they could) in the league.” Internally, Ashley was said to be furious at them finishing fifth.
In 2012-13, things cracked for Newcastle. Vurnon Anita was their only senior signing that summer, an act of self-sabotage that immediately put Pardew and his players under unfair pressure.
“We got to the quarter-finals (of the Europa League) against Benfica and we were close to beating them,” Cabaye says. “We had a very good season in Europe, but the Premier League was difficult, because we didn’t have the squad to compete. We tried our best, but it wasn’t easy. The squad wasn’t big enough.”
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Three days after going out 4-2 on aggregate against Benfica, Newcastle lost 3-0 at home to Sunderland, their local rivals, a match made notorious by the scenes which came outside the stadium afterwards, when Bud, a police horse, was punched by a fan. In their next match at St James’ two weeks later, they lost 6-0 to Liverpool and Pardew admitted “we are in a relegation battle”.
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A long goodbye was beginning for Cabaye, although there would be one more episode of unfiltered glory: a 1-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford the following December when he scored the only goal — Newcastle’s first win there since 1972. They were becoming a club of moments (and often bad ones), rather than a team who could compete consistently. Away supporters stayed where they were and serenaded him…
Don’t sell Cabaye,
Yohan Cabaye,
I just don’t think you understand…
There was an earlier moment against Manchester United, a 3-0 victory at St James’ in January 2012, when Cabaye scored with a long-range direct free kick and then wheeled away towards the Gallowgate End.
“It’s one of my best memories from Newcastle,” he says. “You can’t see it, but I’ve got goosebumps. For me, it’s a really good memory. Sometimes I put it on the TV for my son, just to show him.
“To be serious, I can’t wait to be there on Wednesday. I can’t wait to come back. Except (the two games in April 2016 and October 2017) with Palace, it’s going to be the first time that I have come back to St James’.
“ I know my colleagues from Paris don’t know about the atmosphere! For sure, it will be one of the best nights ever in Europe. I cannot wait. I can’t wait to see familiar faces too, some people who worked there at the club.”
Newcastle are now an institution who can attract players of Alexander Isak’s and Sandro Tonali’s calibre. They are no longer a stepping-stone. Everything is in place for them to improve; if Cabaye was here now, surely he would be pressing to stay? “Yeah, I’m glad to see Newcastle at the top, under the lights, in Europe, in England,” he says. “I can see that the new ownership is working well.
“I had the chance to meet Dan (Ashworth, the sporting director) at the Champions League draw in Monaco. I know they are going the right way. It could have been easy to spend money after money on players that don’t fit the project. They are doing well and I’m glad to see that.
“And to see St James’ with 52,000 (fans at) every game, screaming; this stadium is so loud. I’m really happy to see that. For me, the question is hard because going back to France after Newcastle was to play for the best team in France, and one of the best in Europe. It’s hard to compare those two projects. What I want to say is that I’m really glad to see Newcastle doing good things in England and in Europe.”
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Group F is brutal, with AC Milan and Dortmund also in the mix, but Newcastle’s goal is to become a fixture at this level, a power. “It’s been 20 years without the Champions League and if the club wants to be a big team in Europe, they have to be in Europe every season,” Cabaye says, “to gain experience and also to have the chance to bring better players in and improve the squad season after season. But they have the potential, for sure.”
’Cos if you sell Cabaye,
Yohan Cabaye,
You’re gonna have a riot on your hands.
Time has passed since his contentious and painful departure, and Newcastle supporters can now look back with equanimity; Cabaye was the best of them at a time when disappointment was engrained. “I’m receiving a lot of messages on social media and they are all kind,” he says. “They are all happy to see PSG coming to town. I think the reception will be great.”
And yet Cabaye was sold and this particular riot is long overdue: a riot of noise, flags, atmosphere, aggression and intensity, PSG in the Champions League and French Day revisited.
It is the club Newcastle now are and could have been, all along.
(Top photo: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)