Luis Binks is a man who knows his own mind. Though, it hasn’t hurt him to have been able to pick the brains of some of the finest players and managers of the modern era along the way.
From turning down Jose Mourinho’s offer of a professional contract at Tottenham Hotspur to spending lockdown in a hotel with Thierry Henry in Montreal, Binks’ unorthodox path in the professional game has finally led him to a long-desired Scotland call up.
As a youngster, the Brondby captain was pulled between the Scotland and England youth setups, but he long ago settled on a dream of pulling on the dark blue as a senior. Having said no to the Special One, shunning the Three Lions was, after all, a piece of cake.
Binks qualifies to play for Scotland through his Dunbar-born grandfather, Richard, and for that side of his family in particular, the call from Sebastien Pocognoli was a special moment.
“My family are buzzing,” Binks said.
“I got the call from the manager and the first thing I did was ring my mum and dad. My mum was screaming because it's her side that I can play for Scotland through, her dad, my grandad. They've all been buzzing and I've been proud as well.
“It's a bit of a different feeling you don't really get with any club football. Even when you sign for a new club you don't really get this feeling. I can't really describe it because to represent the country is I think every boy's dream growing up.
“I don't think [my mum] was expecting it at all. She was just at home when I rung her and she said it was a weird time that I called her in the morning. I'd never really called her in the morning, so I think she thought something was up. She kept going, what do you want? Why are you not training?
“I said no, I've been called up and she was buzzing. She couldn't wait for me to tell my nan, and she wanted everyone to know. I was like ‘no, I've got to wait, it's out tomorrow so everyone will know then’.
“My grandad was born in Dunbar. My grandad was the fully Scottish one. My mum would always take us back up there, me and my sister as kids, to try and keep that Scottish going in us. I'm glad that she did because if she hadn't, I probably wouldn't feel as connected.
“I owe that to her because when I was brought up in England, if I hadn't kept going back to Scotland in the six-week holidays and Easter holidays, then I probably wouldn't feel that connection. We used to always go up to try and find the Loch Ness Monster! We’d go to Parkhead and Ibrox. We always used to go and see a game as well.”
Those carefree days though would soon make way to the rather more serious world of professional football, where Binks took that striking decision to leave Tottenham as a 17-year-old in search of first team football, despite Mourinho’s best efforts to make him stay.
“To say no to Mourinho is a difficult thing obviously because I think he did like me, but I wasn't naive enough to think that I was going to play at 17, 18, being a centre-back,” he said.
“I think I was 17 and I played with the under 23s away at Everton and got beat 6-0, but the manager thought I played well for some reason! I was just a young kid, and the next day they offered me my pro contract. I thought about it for a couple of weeks and then I decided to turn it down. They said, ‘that’s fine, but you can tell that to the first team manager,’ because I was just having a chat with the academy manager.
“Then Mourinho came round with his entourage, I think the assistant manager was there, the sporting director, but I just said that I didn’t want to sign my professional contract because I knew it would be easier to get out as a scholar.
“He told me how he gave Raphael Varane his debut at 18, gave him the captaincy at 18, and all of this and that, but I was thinking that I wasn’t at Real Madrid, and I wasn’t Varane!
“If he had the opportunity to buy a centre back for £50m or £60m he was going to do it, and I didn’t want to get stuck in that cycle of being an old player that is stuck in the 23s, I wanted to go and play.
“He told me that I would come on preseason and play in cup games and then I could go on loan if I wasn’t happy, but I just said no, I was quite stubborn and I had it in my head that nobody was going to push me into it. Not my agent, my dad, no one, it was me.
“So, he said that was fine, and a couple of weeks after I left, he got sacked anyway! I left in the February, and he got sacked just before the cup final.
“I saw him again in Italy two years later when he was Roma manager and he was fine. He was just asking how I was and we had a bit of small talk.
“I just had it so in my head that I wanted to go, and I knew why I was doing it. I wasn’t just saying no for any old reason, it was for the better reason, to go and play men’s football, because ultimately if you don’t play men’s football then you are not going to have a career.
“A lot of my friends who were in the youth teams stayed at Tottenham because it has got the name Tottenham around it, and they have sort of fallen by the wayside, so I think that helps vindicate my decision looking back on it.”
A spell in Montreal with Arsenal legend Henry was then a formative experience for the young centre back.
“I think I only played two games in front of fans before it all shut down [due to Covid],” he said.
“I was in a hotel by the airport, it felt like prison and one day he rang me and said, ‘I'm in this hotel on my own, do you want to move in on another floor? We couldn't be too close and everything. So, I was like, yeah.
“I moved into the hotel with him and it was just me and him and maybe two staff, a cleaner and a receptionist.
“I didn't go home for nine months. We were training on our own, four players at a training ground at a time in half a pitch, doing keep-up, whatever. It was hard, but I don't regret going there because it led me to where I've gone after that.
“I think I was getting on his nerves a little bit! But I think it was good because he didn't have anyone else out there as well, it was just me and him. I'd go for a run in the morning, he'd be sat in the reception and I'd come back and just try and pick his brains - who's the best manager you worked with, best player you played with, all these things. But yes, he was brilliant for me and a good guy.”
It is fair to say then that new Scotland manager Sebastien Pocognoli has a high bar to meet to impress Binks, but the Belgian has managed to do so during the national side’s training camp in La Manga, with Binks convinced that he could be the ideal candidate to play in the back three system preferred by the Belgian.
“I've played in back threes when I've been in Italy,” he said.
“Last year, I played in back threes and I've played in back fours, so I don't think it changes too much. It's just that different managers have different ways of playing it and seeing it. So, it’s about understanding how he wants to play it. I think it would suit me.
“We've had a few [meetings]. I've spoken to him around the place. No real one-to-ones, but team meetings. He speaks really well. He's explained how he wants to play. I think everyone likes the style of play he wants to bring. I think it'll be quite a refreshing style of play for Scotland.
“We've just got to try and implement that now and try and take as much on board as possible. From the first session, where everyone was on the pitch, to the first game Saturday, there's not a lot of time. We've just got to try and take as much on in these early stages as possible. Hopefully, it shows on Saturday.
“[He wants us to] just to be proactive, forward minded. I think he wants the defenders to be where we build from. He wants us to be on the front foot and defend so we can then attack quickly. I think that's what he'll try to bring. An attacking style of play.
“It's up to us defenders to try and be on the front foot and do that.”
