Paul Lambert reveals he pulled Motherwell sickie to pave way for dream Borussia Dortmund switch

It started with a sicknote and ended in arguably the biggest fairytale story ever penned by a Scottish player.

Paul Lambert, a good solid professional plying his trade at Motherwell, taking a punt on a trial in Germany that was to end with him marking Zinedine Zidane out of the Champions League final a year later. The midfielder would go on to captain Scotland and Celtic but Lambert admits that a decision to pull the wool over Fir Park boss Alex McLeish’s eyes in the summer of 1996 changed everything.

Speaking on the Off The Record podcast, Lambert said: “Motherwell were going to Northampton, pre-season, and Rab McKinnon had gone to Twente Enschede. I kept in touch with him and asked how the move had come around and he told me a Dutch agent, Ton van Dalen, had made it happen and offered to put me in touch with him.

“Ton phoned me just as Motherwell were going to Northampton, so I was thinking, ‘how am I going to get out of that trip?’ I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it - I pulled a sickie.

“Ton told me to jump on a plane and he’d meet me in Enschede. He was at the airport waiting and we jumped in his car but I still didn’t know where I was going.

“He told me, ‘There’s two teams. One is PSV Eindhoven and the other is Borussia Dortmund’. I just thought, ‘Jesus’...if he’d said Azerbaijan I’d have gone because I’d killed myself with Motherwell. I’d taken a sickie, so I wouldn’t be playing there again.

“We went to Eindhoven, where Dick Adovcaat was the coach and was very welcoming. They had a right good side.

“He played me on the right wing but I was never quick and I couldn’t do one v one situations where I’d get to the byeline and whip a ball in. Funnily enough, I scored two goals in two games but I was never a winger.