Senderos a serious reader of the game

Arsenal v Liverpool: The multi-lingual Swiss keeping Sol out of the Gunners side is living his wall-poster dream

Geneva, a city of watchmaking, jewellery, and chic fashion. Its children's futures tends to be in the professions, and their priority is more likely to be the deposit of funds in their first bank accounts than putting down pullovers for goalposts. Geneva has never been perceived as providing a shop window for world-class footballing talent.

Geneva, a city of watchmaking, jewellery, and chic fashion. Its children's futures tends to be in the professions, and their priority is more likely to be the deposit of funds in their first bank accounts than putting down pullovers for goalposts. Geneva has never been perceived as providing a shop window for world-class footballing talent.

But then Philippe Senderos was never typical of Geneva convention. "Back home in my little bedroom in Geneva I had posters of the players that I liked on my wall," the Swiss-born centre-back recalls with a smile. "I had Thierry [Henry], Patrick [Vieira] and Robert [Pires]... nearly all were players from the Arsenal team. When you arrive here at the training ground, and you discover you are training with those players, you think [he makes a gesture which combines admiration and trepidation], now it's my turn."

Senderos, a 20-year-old going on 30 in his manner, adds: "For me, it was a dream. From five years old, I was saying, 'I want to be a footballer'. All the other children in my class would laugh, and say, 'No, you can't be a footballer. You will have to be a doctor', whatever. But I have always wanted to make a living like this. I have been able to live out my passion, do the thing I always loved."

It was as the captain of the Swiss Under-17 side who won the European Championship in 2002 that his potential was first recognised by Europe's élite clubs. That was an occasion, incidentally, in which his country faced England in the semi-final. In opposition was a teenager by the name of Wayne Rooney. "He was one of the best, of course," Senderos happily reminisces. "It was after that tournament that Wayne made that great step forward, coming into the Everton first team."

Still, you evidently had no problems with him that day? He pauses. "Well, we won 3-0. We were the better team on that day. But he is a great player."

Many judges are similarly endorsing Senderos, the product of a Spanish father and a Serbian mother raised in Argentina. It was not merely the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, who coveted the defender then playing for the Swiss club Servette. Sir Alex Ferguson was another; so, too, Real Madrid, both Milan clubs and Bayern Munich. The selection process was presumably some dilemma for him, particularly in view of the fact that his father, Julian, a chauffeur with a bank in Geneva, is a staunch Real supporter.

"My dad, both my parents, want the best for me, and they have always backed what I think is the best," he says. "Real Madrid are a great club, but maybe too big for an 18-year-old, as I was then. They buy players who have done something in their careers already."

So what impressed him about the Gunners? "Everything, really. I met the players, the boss, the vice-chairman [David Dein], everyone was really good to me. But meeting the boss was the main thing; he gave me confidence and helped me to choose Arsenal."

A frustrating hiatus in his progress, caused by a long injury, has been followed by an impressive sequence of appearances during Sol Campbell's absence since his debut on New Year's Day against Charlton. Arsenal have not lost a game in that period, one in which he also represented Switzerland against France in a World Cup qualifier, and contributed to a lock-out of the French attack.

Although the England centre-back has recovered from injury, Wenger appears in no rush to jettison his replacement. Senderos himself perceives Campbell as an educational asset to his career, rather than as a threat to his immediate future.

"It's great to have him back," says Senderos. "It's always good to have a player in the team with Sol Campbell's quality. I can always learn from him and get better, as a person and as a player. But while I get my opportunity, I'm going to take it."

At 6ft 3in, and already an astute reader of the game, he has been compared to the former Highbury icon Tony Adams. It is a formidable image to replicate, but where the worlds of that pair do already collide is in their communication styles. "From my position, you see everything. You must always organise your team," says Senderos. "I have to give information. I have to talk. It is part of my job. If you don't, it is going to be difficult for the rest of the team."

And you don't feel intimidated, urging, maybe even admonishing, the likes of Henry, Vieira and Dennis Bergkamp? "Of course, at the beginning, you think, 'If I say something to one of these players, how is he going to react?" confesses Senderos. "Will he say something back to me? But these are big professionals here. If you behave correctly in training and always be respectful, you have no problem."

And do you enforce your point at half-time in the dressing room? "If I had to, I would. After the boss, of course. We have to be complete, so everyone tries to bring something to the team. That's what creates the team spirit."

Had football not been his calling, Senderos would have gone on to university. "I would have learnt languages. More languages." He already speaks French as his first language, Spanish fluently, English, and a little German and Italian.

"I was always a hard worker at school, I always wanted to get things done. My dad used to say to me, 'The time you don't use now will not come back tomorrow', and I have never forgotten that. I was always a hard worker at football, too, because I'm not Ronaldinho. I'm another type of player."

Away from the game, he relaxes with books. Not so much The Da Vinci Code, but French literature and autobiographies. "Just now I'm reading The Kite Runner. It's a book about Afghanistan, about a child growing up and his situation when the Russians arrive in his country."

Lest he may be portrayed as rather too bookish, he quickly adds: "Don't get me wrong, I play on my PlayStation, too," he says. "I'm not trying to be a professor of literature or anything. I just do it for pleasure. I try to be interested in other things than football."

In the manner of footballers in bygone years, he still lives with the club land-lady, Noreen, together with the Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas. He is considering buying an apartment, but none of the expensive vehicles in the car park belong to him. Indeed, he has no driving licence. He shrugs. His career is evidently paramount. "You have a gift from God which has given you this opportunity. You have to make sacrifices."

For Senderos, those tangible rewards can wait.