Campo groomed for when Saturday comes

As some of you are going to skip the text until you find this piece of information, we’d better start with his coiffure. Ivan Campo loves his big curly hair and he doesn’t have a hairdresser in England.

‘I have it cut when I go to Spain,” he admits.

Ignorant of the art of hairdressing, I follow up by asking a bold question: it must be difficult to cut, no?

‘Not really. Firstly they wet it and then they cut the ends.”

Ah, yes, of course, like any other hair.

If the Bolton Wanderers defender had left England after his first few months in the Premiership, when he was still trying to find his feet, he would have run the risk of being remembered in England only by that section of body geography, after appearing in more ‘top 10 bad barnets” lists than any other football statistic.

But Dr Sam Allardyce, as he is known in some circles, can easily be described as the man who made him feel like a footballer again. And a good one, too, once he discovered he could make better use of Campo’s passing range and his tackling skills, which were found wanting as a centre-back, with the pace of the Premiership, in the centre of midfield.

At Real Madrid Campo had lost faith in his ability in the profession he had chosen to make his living, a crisis that affected his private life.

‘In Bolton I managed to be again what I used to be, to find the enthusiasm to play football,” he says.

Campo (29) was helped immensely by Allardyce and his army of collaborators (including psychologists, physiotherapists and statisticians), ‘which serve to plan the squad to the last inch, not only physically but, more importantly, mentally”.

The whole set-up at Bolton, now including Humphrey Walters, the management guru who worked with the England rugby team, ‘works as a big family. I have never been in a club that has such great camaraderie, with such a good atmosphere. Of course, those that do not play regularly are unhappier than the ones that do, but that happens everywhere.”

Campo lives, like his good friends the Djorkaeffs, near Manchester in a secluded estate.

‘I have only been to Bolton a couple of times,” he admits.

He enjoys the team meals to celebrate the special occasions that happen, but the night out that many Bolton fans would love to join (Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha and Campo together) has not happened yet.

‘We meet as a team, but I don’t tend to go out with players in small groups. Everybody has got families and their own lives. It is a privilege to be a friend of the Djorkaeffs, but Okocha lives in Bolton, away from us.”

But despite the evident effort to make the steadily expanding foreign community at the Reebok stadium feel at home, nothing can replace the real family and the native land. Especially if you come from Spain.

So Campo, although Basque, goes to the sunnier Mallorca ‘as often as I can” and Allardyce allows him to do so, aware of the importance of rest and conscious there is life away from football.

Over there, Campo then takes charge of his two businesses on the island — the restaurant Aitamar in the centre of Palma and the pub-disco Carmelo. You could easily imagine him greeting clients in the first one and winding down in the second when the time arrives to retire.

‘I always ask for permission and I normally always get it. The coach understands that for someone used to a different life it is hard to be away from your people for too long.”

Campo was at Real Madrid from 1998 up until his arrival at Bolton a year and a half ago and has had a long list of coaches — Hector Cuper, Vicente del Bosque, John Toshack, Luis Aragones and Guus Hiddink. But he is convinced that Allardyce can have success.

‘He has two things you find in the best bosses and that some of the most famous ones don’t have — on one hand he is very demanding, wants to improve everyday; on the other he is very understanding, it is easy to talk to him. Maybe he should test himself in a bigger club — he is prepared for it. He is definitively going to be a friend when I leave Bolton.”

Fighting for titles (Campo has won one league, two Champions Leagues and one Intercontinental Cup) and scrapping to avoid relegation both create a totally different feeling that, he says, cannot be compared.

‘Maybe you can say holding the European Cup makes you scream with joy, while ending the season having survived in the Premiership, if that is the target, gives you a nice warm feeling inside and leaves you smiling for weeks.”

Campo is one of the most popular players at Bolton but feels that the fans keep a certain distance from him. He understands that as a positive sign.

‘Reaching the final of the League Cup would be a reward for the effort the fans put in for us, all that travelling, all that chanting. I get asked for autographs, the pictures, the shaking hands, of course. They want a piece of you. But I have never had any problem or any special treatment. I think it is not more than a mark of respect.”

Campo has warned Bolton’s new striker, the Spaniard Javi Moreno, of what to expect.

‘I have told him to come here to enjoy football again and not to get scared of the boss when he screams — as he is in truth a genuine bloke. I didn’t know Javi apart from a few words on the pitch in past meetings.

‘I had to warn him he is going to find a great change in many day-to-day things, but I also mentioned to him that he is landing in a country where playing football is the best possible way to spend Saturdays.” —