Former Arsenal goalkeeper Rami Shaaban has offered a fascinating insight into the key ingredients which made Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles so exceptional during the 2003-04 campaign.
The Swede, who spent two years with the Gunners between 2002 and 2004, was on the bench several times during Arsenal’s historic unbeaten season, even though he never made it onto the pitch.
And so he saw first hand exactly what went into making arguably the greatest side the English top flight has ever seen.
From the artistry of Dennis Bergkamp, the desire of Patrick Vieira and the behind the scenes pranks of Ray Parlour - Shaaban witnessed it all.
And speaking exclusively to Goal, the 44-year-old has detailed why he believes everything came together so perfectly during that record breaking campaign.
“We were a group that gelled so well together,” said the former Sweden international. “So even when the tension was high, you had people like Vieira who could be easy going and you had Ray who could pull out a joke when the time was right.
"But then they would switch on as well. I said Vieira, because when there was a game, Patrick was totally different. The presence of Patrick was so important for every one of us.
“But to have someone like Parlour - and Sylvan Wiltord as well - it was such a great mix. You need to have those players to let down the tension sometimes.
"Arsene wasn't demanding, he just put so much belief in us. Even me. I wasn’t playing, but I still felt like I was one of the most important players in the squad.
"He put that confidence in every single player, everyone accepted their role in the team and I think that was the biggest task, to keep everyone happy when you had a squad like we had."
Arsenal finished the season with 90 points, having won 26 of their 38 games and drawn the other 12.
As was often the way during that era, Thierry Henry topped the scoring charts with 30 league goals, earning the second of his four Golden Boots during his time in England.
The France striker - Arsenal’s greatest ever goalscorer - deservedly grabbed much of the limelight, but for Shaaban there was another player who was equally important.
“Thierry was amazing, he won a lot of games for us,” said the goalkeeper. “But we had Dennis Bergkamp as well, the cleverest player I ever played with.
“I don’t think Thierry would have been the player he was if we didn’t have Dennis in the team.
“A lot of people say, Thierry, Thierry, Thierry. But when Dennis was on the pitch, he saw things that no-one else saw. His passes, everything, he was just a magician.”
Arsenal went into the campaign licking their wounds after a poor finish to the previous season which saw them lose out in the title race to Manchester United.
The Gunners topped the table for the majority of the 2002-03 season, only to draw three and lose one of their final seven games as they were hauled in by Sir Alex Ferguson’s side.
And Shaaban believes the lessons learned from that campaign were key to the Invincibles’ success. That was especially true in early April when they found themselves trailing 2-1 to Liverpool at the end of a week which had seen them knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester United and the Champions League by Chelsea.
“I don’t think going unbeaten was in our mindset at the beginning,” he said. “Winning the league was the first priority because we lost it very badly the year before.
“I actually think we played better football the first year I was at Arsenal even though we didn’t win, but we built something that year character-wise which allowed us to be invincible the second year.
“I don’t think we would have come back to win that Liverpool game, especially after losing against Chelsea, if we hadn’t built that character from the season before. We were one year older.”
Shaaban added: “We all believed we could do it [go unbeaten], but we didn’t talk about it until the very end. Even when we did it, we didn’t really know what it would mean.
“If you look now, 15 years afterwards, people still talk about it every season.
“Even I do it. I sat there in January watching Liverpool thinking ‘bloody hell, when will that first loss come’. It was the same last season. When City beat them I was so happy. It does mean a lot.”
After coming back to beat Liverpool 4-2 in early April, it took Arsenal just three more games to be crowned champions - with the title won following a 2-2 draw at Tottenham.
They then drew with Birmingham City and Portsmouth before beating Fulham and Leicester City to become the first team to finish a league season unbeaten in the top flight since Preston North End in 1889.
It was a historic achievement, won by some of the best players the Premier League has ever seen, but Shaaban insists the success of that squad was not purely down to their talent on the pitch, but also the way the players mixed off it.
“We all got on so well.” He said. “We were serious when we needed to be, but also had a laugh with each other and that was so important.
“We had people like Ray [Parlour] and you need these type of players to go a season without losing. You can’t always be competitive, you need to have a breather as well and Ray gave you those breathers.
“I remember the Birmingham game just after we had won the title and I was sitting next to Ray on the bench. [Nwankwo] Kanu and Martin Keown needed to play those final last games to get a medal.
“So the boss always let Martin play the last five minutes or something. In the Birmingham game, we had already made two subs and Martin was already out warming up, assuming he would be the last sub.
“Ray came to me and told me to go out and warm up and to tell Martin something had happened with Jens [Lehmann] and that I had to go on and play.
“I was shy and said I couldn’t, so Ray went out to warm up and he took off his training jersey as well. Honestly, you should have seen Martin’s face. He was like a child who didn’t get candy!
“We all had a blast, even the boss. It wasn’t often you see him laughing like that. It was an amazing moment and that was Ray for me.”
Shaaban added: “He was always pulling everyone’s shorts down as well when we were holding the trays with the food on in the canteen at the training ground.
“It was like kindergarten and he was like a child. He always pulled someone’s shorts down so they were just standing there in their knickers.
“It was so childish, but you had 20 boys, world-class players, laughing at someone having their pants pulled down. But those are the sort of things you need to have a group like that.
“I don’t think Ray would have done that to Jens though. He wouldn’t have dared because he would have got that tray round his face.”
