The Arsenal captain's on-off move to Real Madrid last summer led to a season of frustration and lost form. As his side's last chance for a trophy, the FA Cup final, approaches, Jason Cowley speaks to Patrick Vieira, his friends and confidants, to discover how deeply the Spanish saga has affected him

One cold evening in early January I went to watch Patrick Vieira play for Arsenal at Highbury. I had been reading all season that he was no longer the influence of old, that there was something wan and distracted about his performances, and I wanted to see for myself what was going on. 'Not so long ago Vieira's meaning in English football was immense,' wrote James Lawton, in characteristic twilight mode, in the Independent in December, '[but] if Arsène Wenger's expression seems to be permanently haunted at the moment it, no doubt, has much to do with the decline of Vieira's influence.'

Manchester City were in town that night and, inspired by an exuberant Shaun Wright-Phillips, a player long coveted by Wenger, they played well, holding on for a 1-1 draw that effectively ended Arsenal's aspirations of retaining the title. After the match, as he sat before the assembled journalists, Wenger seemed exhausted, his once smooth, pale forehead as creased as an accordion. 'It will be very hard to catch Chelsea now,' he wearily conceded. He was asked, inevitably, about his captain, Vieira, who had been in dazzling form - for City. When he was not losing the ball, he was shooting wildly or missing headers. The pass with which he teed up Wright-Phillips for his goal was a wonder of disguised artistry.

Vieira, who will be 29 next month, performed that January night in a way I had never seen him perform before, and I have visited Highbury many times since he arrived in London, from AC Milan, as a little-known 19-year-old. I was there for his first game, a midweek fixture against Sheffield Wednesday in September 1996. He was the only foreign player in an otherwise all-British squad that evening and, emerging lankily from the tunnel, he looked less like a footballer than a startled foal. Yet there was nothing vulnerable about his game: soon after coming on as a substitute for Ray Parlour, he began to pass and move with a languid, loose-limbed, slightly gangly grace that was unlike anything seen at Arsenal before. It was immediately apparent that this lean, alarmingly tall young man, who had played so much of his recent football for the reserves of Milan, from where he was tempted to London by Wenger's long recollection of his early promise at Cannes, was something special. The crowd received him with surprised delight. 'I played a good game that night,' Vieria says, with a knowing smile, when we meet. 'The crowd were wary of me. I was really skinny. They wanted to know who that new guy on the pitch is. They wanted to know if I could handle the pressure.' He could. He was on his way.

At his best, Vieira is a relentless, supremely determined player. He can destroy, direct and distribute, often in one sweeping movement. His tenacity is equalled only by his technique. He is, says Arsenal defender Lauren, 'the lungs of our team'. But against City it was as if he no longer wanted to be there at all. So where did he want to be? Madrid? 'It's clear that Patrick has been fighting with himself,' says Philippe Auclair, the French writer, musician and correspondent for France Football, who has seen nearly every game Vieira has played for Arsenal. 'His performances this season have been inconsistent, and sometimes poor, even for France. At times, he's been the giant of old - at Charlton, against Blackburn in the FA Cup semi-final - at others, like someone trying to impersonate himself. He's always tried his hardest to play like Vieira can play. But you can try too hard. He wasn't helped by the injury that prevented him playing at the beginning of the campaign and building a rhythm for the season. But, to me, it is as if he has been playing with a big question mark over his head. The sense of doubt has been palpable at times. It's as if he couldn't stop asking himself whether he made the right decision to stay with Arsenal in the summer. He's been fighting with himself, because he knows he hasn't been playing well, and he desperately wants to. You could feel the frustration in him. He's usually one of the most relaxed and laid-back people you can meet, but this season you could sense the tension within him.'

Vieira, according to friends, has spent much of the past year in a condition of heightened tension. Last summer, when he returned home to London following France's disappointing showing at Euro 2004, he knew that, this time, he wanted to join Real Madrid, the club that had first tried to sign him in the summer of 2001. He knew, too, that by leading Arsenal through a whole season unbeaten in the Premiership there was nothing more to achieve at a club that had neither the depth of squad nor the resources to win the Champions League.

Vieira longed to act, to become a Madrid player, and yet he could not act. He withdrew deeper into himself, suspended uneasily between a desire to act and the final delayed act of decision itself. He felt powerfully conflicted and recognised the need, indeed the necessity, of talking through the experience of his uncertainty with others. He talked to Dennis Bergkamp, the person to whom he is closest at Arsenal; he talked to Thierry Henry, whom he likes and respects; he talked to his partner, Cheryl, from Trinidad, with whom he lives in a fine house in Hampstead and whose child he brings up as his own. He kept on talking.

'In exquisite pain,' the French artist Sophie Calle writes, 'I decided to continue such exchanges until I had got over my pain by comparing it with other people's, or had worn out my own story through sheer repetition.' But all the talking didn't help. In the end, he turned to his mother, Emilienne - 'Mama Rose', as she is known. 'During those long weeks last summer, I spoke often to my mother,' Vieira says. 'I'm very close to her; she has always been there for me when I was young, guiding me. She is such a strong woman. When we left Senegal and moved to France, she went both to work and to school. She didn't see a lot of us during the day, but I knew she was fighting very hard for us - to give us what we wanted and what we needed. So I turned to her to help me make my decision to leave or to stay at Arsenal, the club at which I had achieved so many dreams. But of course she could not make the decision for me. She told me that I'm responsible for how I act, that I was big enough to make my own decision, to work out what I would lose and what I would gain.'

Yet still Vieira could not act. The summer drifted. The speculation remained febrile: he would join Madrid, it was said, only if he were paid the same weekly rate as one of the galácticos, a Beckham or Zidane, who are reported to earn between £120,000 and £130,000 per week. But Vieira was not a galáctico. He was a resolutely earth-bound destroyer, an überwatercarrier, as he would surely be called in Germany. He earns £90,000 per week at Arsenal. Madrid were prepared to pay him about the same. But, it was said, he wanted more. He wanted parity. He wanted to be recognised as a galáctico

He returned to training with Arsenal while all the time Wenger prepared for the worst: the loss of his captain and his leader on the pitch, the Francophone African who had arrived at the club even before Wenger himself, leading the way for the rapid transformation of England's most venerable footballing institution into a model of progressive multinational and multiracial integration.

'Wenger was badly affected by the Vieira saga,' Philippe Auclair says. 'The strain on him is very great. He's like a poker player who has been playing for a long time with three eights in his hand while pretending that he has a royal flush. The astonishing thing is that he's managed to win the hand so often. He simply doesn't have the resources to compete with Manchester United or, obviously, Chelsea in the transfer market. He's had to rely on bargain buys, on his fantastic eye for young talent and on his players consistently overperforming. The pressure must be intolerable, especially when your captain looks as if he is about to leave.

'Wenger understands that all great teams are built on continuity. You have to keep hold of your key players and establish a sense of identity. Vieira, as captain, is one of those key players. What is most impressive about Wenger is that he never lies. He has great moral integrity. He says so many interesting and incredible things - things loaded with significance - at press conferences but no one is listening to him. They are only waiting for a sensational comment.

'For Wenger, his life in football has been a journey from innocence into disillusionment. He first lost his innocence when [as manager of Monaco] he discovered that Marseille were buying victories [the club were stripped of their 1993 French championship and European Cup win for bribing opponents], and the Vieira saga has been part of that continuing loss of innocence. And yet, still he believes in rules, in morals, in certain codes of behaviour - and in his players.'

On the evening of 12 august, two days before the first game of the new season, Vieira went to see his manager at his home in Totteridge, a few miles north-west of Highbury. Wenger, who had been negotiating with West Ham to sign midfielder Michael Carrick, assumed that his captain was there to say thank you and goodbye. 'I told Mr Wenger that I had decided to stay,' Vieira says now. 'I thanked him for allowing me the time to make a decision. I knew that it was a very difficult time for him as well, that the season was coming and he wanted to get on with building the team. I explained to him why I wanted to stay - because I wanted to improve and I believed he could help me improve. We have a good squad, with Henry, Campbell and Cole. I told him that we must achieve what we needed to achieve, that Dennis and I wanted to stay to finish the job - and that means winning the Champions League.'

I was told that Vieira cried as he spoke to Wenger. 'Cry?' He smiles. 'I'm not sure I cried, but it was very emotional ... the boss has always been fantastic for me.' Vieira had made his decision and yet his difficulties were only just beginning. He had acted; now he had to prove that his inaction had not damaged the team. He had to prove himself all over again, to prove that he could transcend the unsettling effects of all the equivocation and doubt, to prove, not least to the fans, that he belonged at Arsenal.

Arsenal are no longer an English club in any meaningful sense of the word; the club is a collection of international players that merely happens to be based in London. But has something been lost in the rush to embrace a new polyglot globalised identity? 'When I was at the club, we - I mean the English players - set a mood,' the former Arsenal defender Lee Dixon told me recently over lunch at his restaurant, the Riverside Brasserie in Bray, Berkshire. 'It wasn't a question of them and us, but we did have a special camaraderie. This helped to give us our will and togetherness on the pitch. Now, when I visit the training ground, I don't see that same sense of camaraderie. There is no dominant figure, no father figure. It's more of a group thing, without leaders. I don't see a Tony Adams standing up to say, "Look, this is going off here, we've got to get our heads down and fight". Groups of men - whether in football or, say, in the army - need to be led. I don't see that sense of leadership from Vieira, certainly not in the way Adams used to lead. For me, Tony led by example. You'd get a tingle down the back of your spine when he was trying to inspire you, especially when we were losing, when we needed to get a goal. That's gone from the dressing room now. I'm not saying it was better when I was there - it's just different. A different mentality and attitude.'

Dixon admires Vieira, both as a man and as a player. 'But he's not been playing as well as he would have liked,' he adds. 'He's a nice guy, he's conscientious, his heart is in the right place ... he was very, very close to going and the whole thing must be playing on his mind. When you are playing at such a high standard, week after week, it doesn't take much to knock you off your stride. Sometimes you don't realise how well you are playing. It's only when you come out of it, when you lose your form, that you realise how it was. He's such an influential player, and his loss of form must have affected all those around him.'

The journalist Vieira trusts above all others is Pierre Menes, of L'Equipe. Menes, it is said, knows everybody who matters in French football. He has the private mobile numbers of all the leading players, including the notoriously difficult and often reclusive Nicolas Anelka, now in churlish exile in Turkey. Menes even had conversations with some of the France players at half-time during the 1998 World Cup final in Paris. He has known Vieira since he first emerged at Cannes - 'In those days,' he says, 'he seemed so tall and his legs were so long. He was very physical and powerful, and yet he had incredible technique.'

They are working on a book about Vieira's life in football, to be published by Weidenfeld. 'I don't think Patrick has struggled this season,' he says with forgivable loyalty. 'He is at his best when he is playing alongside an experienced defensive midfielder. He's been back to his best of late because Gilberto has returned from injury. For much of this season, he was partnered in midfield by inexperienced players, Cesc Fábregas, who is 17, and [Mathieu] Flamini, who has just turned 21. He has also been playing with an injury to his ankle. When we are together sometimes, working on the book, his ankle is so swollen that he cannot even wear a shoe. But still he tries to play in every game. One should never doubt his commitment to Arsenal, even though he was very tempted to leave. After all, Real Madrid is the greatest club in the world and to have the chance to play alongside Zidane is every French player's dream. And yet he couldn't leave. He knows that Arsenal is the club for him and that English football suits him best. On the night he decided to stay with Arsenal he visited Wenger at home to tell him of his decision then went to see a movie. He simply wanted to relax. I asked the other day what movie he went to see. He said that he couldn't remember. And why couldn't he remember? Because he had been completely overwhelmed by the decision he made.'

Born in dakar in June 1976, Patrick Vieira was just eight when his mother, who was born in the Cape Verde islands, 300 hundred miles off the coast of Senegal, took him and his only brother to live in France. Vieira never knew his father. Had his father ever tried to contact him? His eyes become shrewd when I ask him this; he seems to want to say something, then hesitates. After a long pause, he says: 'I don't know my Dad. This is part of my life I don't want to talk about.'

Once in France, the family settled in a cramped flat in the drab Paris suburb of Trappes, which is close to Versailles. In those days Trappes was rough but peaceful enough; today, predominantly Arab, it has become increasingly inflamed by racial and religious tension, and is notorious for tournantes, gang rapes in which a young woman, usually a Muslim, is passed among men like a joint, a tourner.

In person, Vieira has an unhurried ease. He does not so much walk as glide into the interview room, sprawling across his chair, his long legs outstretched. 'Off the pitch, Patrick is the African, very cool and relaxed,' says Menes. 'On the pitch, he is defined by his hatred of losing. People often assume that the French players at Arsenal are very close. They respect each other but they don't spend a lot of time together. Sometimes when I'm alone in my hotel room, Patrick rings and we go out for dinner. He likes to talk about things other than football. Thierry [Henry], by contrast, is absolutely consumed by football, he lives and breathes football, and his mission is to be remembered as one of the greatest strikers in the history of the game. As for Robert [Pires], he is a mystery. It is hard to believe that someone as friendly and gentle as him can be such a good player. And he has wide interests - politics, music.'

In the summer of 2003, Vieira returned to Senegal for the first time since he had left with his mother as a young boy. He was there to promote the charity for which he is tireless in raising funds, the Diambars Institute, a football academy for young Africans that values educational and sporting excellence in about equal measure. 'My African identity is increasingly important to me,' he says. 'When we left Senegal it was difficult at first to settle [in Paris], but at least the language was the same. You have left behind family, everything that you used to know, your friends, your habits, your African culture, your entire way of life. You don't know where you are going. But you also learn important things about yourself, you learn to become strong.

'It was important for me to reconnect with Senegal, to go back and start a project there. I wanted to do something for the country and to use football - everyone loves football there - as a means to educate kids. They have to learn that only hard work can bring them success. At first there were kids at the institute who could not read or write. Now there is progress. They can read books and write stories - and then play football. We tell them how hard it is to become a professional footballer. Perhaps only one or two of them will succeed. That's why their education matters. We pay for them to come to university in Europe. They can then go back to Senegal to run businesses and to make a better future.'

Vieira's own future, for now, remains at Arsenal. But for how much longer? Already there is speculation that this summer Real may make one final attempt to entice him away. There may be another issue, too. Tony Adams has suggested that, because of his robust style as well as his unusual physiology, Vieira may not play long into his thirties. 'I think that Patrick's only got a year or two years left at the top level,' he says. 'Looking at the way he runs, basic physiology will tell you that. I believe one leg is three centimetres longer than the other. As a result, I don't think he'll be playing into his thirties, at the top level anyway. Remember, you're talking about world-class players here keeping up with the best, with a new raft of talent as it comes through. Arsène would be thinking, "OK, you can probably do another three years but what are we going to get for you then?" If you study the ProZone stats, his stamina isn't great, he doesn't cover the distances, but where he makes up for that is his mental understanding of the game. In his position, his technical ability is second to none.'

During our conversation, Vieira speaks often of those players - Martin Keown, David Seaman, Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp - who had helped him to settle in so easily at Highbury. He never once mentions Adams as an influence or guide. It is tempting to seek meaning in the gaps and omissions of his conversation. So he won't speak about his father, and he won't speak about Tony Adams... In the end, I ask him about his predecessor as Arsenal captain and his views. 'He is wrong,' he says firmly. 'He is absolutely wrong, because I have the determination to stay at the top. I look after myself properly. I know it's not going to be easy because of my early start [as a professional]. But staying on top drives me on. When you are young you can play as often as you want. Now, when you are getting older, you need at least two days' rest [between games]. But I will play on for a long time.'

Vieira enjoys London, especially the multicultural vibrancy and energetic vernacular of street life, 'the mixing of so many different peoples', as he puts it. When he first arrived here he was impressed, watching television, by how integrated so many black and Asian Britons were, and how they occupied important roles as news readers and presenters. 'There is racism in football, as there is in normal life,' he says, 'but I have never experienced any racism myself the whole time I've been in England. There's a special tolerance here in London. And Spain? Well, what happened to Thierry [when Henry was insulted by Spain manager Luis Aragonés] and to Ashley [Cole] and the others while playing for England, was a disgrace. But you have to ask yourself this: do you stop your dream of going to Spain because of some stupid people? The answer is no.'

Was this a mere confusion of tense, or is Vieira still dreaming of Spain? I don't ask. Instead, at the end of last month, I return once more to Highbury to watch him in action, this time against Spurs. His performance, like that of the team itself, was much improved. Now, as he prepares for the FA Cup final against Manchester United on 21 May, he seems to be playing with much of his old zeal and tenacity, settled as he is in midfield alongside the injury-returned Gilberto Silva, who, because of his uncomplicated effectiveness, is known in Brazil as the invisible shield.

When Vieira and I last speak he is buoyant, talking especially about the potential of Arsenal's young players. He was frustrated by the team's repeated failures in the Champions League but refused to accept that Wenger's tactical inflexibility - his reluctance, for instance, to play 4-5-1 away from home, with Henry as a lone striker in front of a fortified midfield - was to blame. 'It is not the system that's at fault. In 1998, when we won the Double, we were good defensively. We would win one-nil, one-nil ... now, we are good offensively. But we want to go forward too much, to score too much. We need to defend better. We need to be more balanced to be successful, and more disciplined.'

Of his prolonged summer anguish, he says: 'You make it sound as if I was in a painful position. It wasn't a painful position. In fact, it was a great position to be in - to stay at Arsenal or join Real Madrid! What made the whole thing so difficult was that there were a lot of people involved ... there was more pressure coming from outside than from the two clubs themselves.'

The successful modern Premiership footballer has everything he wants: astonishing wealth, boundless leisure, the world's applause. Yet he wants more: the next move, a better deal, another club, respect. His desires are being endlessly stimulated - by agents and by advisers. So how to stay motivated when all economic needs are sated long before you reach the age of 30? How to concentrate, and to stay focused, when there is so much noise around you?

There was, for sure, too much noise around Patrick Vieira last summer; when he returned to the team and began to play again, he found himself affected by a different kind of noise, the white noise of his own uncertain conscience: How much am I worth? Why didn't I go? Did I make the correct decision to stay? 'All footballers have a selfish streak and Vieira is no exception,' says Philippe Auclair. 'But, in the end, I'm not sure even he knows why he stayed at Arsenal. It must be difficult always to be tantalised by other possibilities.'

Having spoken to Vieira at some length, I agree that he does not seem to know why he stayed. Or at least he can offer no convincing explanation for spurning Real. Sometimes inaction is a kind of action: the not knowing and the not doing becomes a form of certitude and affirmation.

Or is this too melodramatic? Perhaps the truth is more prosaic, as Pierre Menes would have it, and that Vieira's struggles this season were about little more than being forced to play without an adequate partner in central midfield. The shield was invisible for too long. Or perhaps Adams has stumbled on a painful truth when he predicts that Vieira's body will let him down sooner rather than later; that the harsh demands of a decade of incessant activity for Arsenal and France - the tackles, the relentless drive - are beginning to reduce him. After all, to play most sports, even at the level of the village green or recreational field, is to be reminded ceaselessly of time's arrow: of the ruthless, inexorable, uni-directionality of our lives. More than anything else sport reminds you of how your body is ageing and how you can no longer do what you once did so well.

Whatever the truth, Patrick Vieira remains an Arsenal player and he has once more begun to speak about his dream of leading his team to victory in an FA Cup final and then on, in hope, towards the Champions League. The wheel is come full circle; he is here.

For information on the Diambars project visit Diambars.com.

With special thanks to Ernest Hecht and Tomasz Wlodarczyk

Going, going ... but not gone

2000

4 June Vieira expresses displeasure that Arsenal have sold Emmanuel Petit and Marc Overmars. Two days later, Juventus make a £16m bid.

2001

22 June Vieira tells the Sun: 'I am not going to start the season with Arsenal. I have left. That's it and they know it.' Agent Marc Roger confirms the story.

17 July Arsène Wenger says Vieira will not discuss his future: 'We talked only about training and the next few days. Patrick doesn't want to discuss it.'

21 August Arsenal reveal they have turned down three bids in excess of £30 million for Vieira, from Juventus, Real Madrid and Manchester United.

2002

2 January Vieira travels to Madrid with Roger and other advisers. Reports claim Vieira is demanding a five-year contract with Real Madrid.

5 August Vieira is still at Highbury and talking of a new contract: 'I love my club. We will soon find the time to have a discussion. It would mean so much more to me to win the Champions League with Arsenal than with Manchester United or Real Madrid.'

2003

7 April Vieira says he is ready to stay at Arsenal for the rest of his career. 'Who wouldn't think about playing for Real Madrid with the squad they have? But the most important thing is to be happy and everything I am looking for I find here at Arsenal.'

1 August After Real publicly express interest, Vieira says: 'I want Arsenal and myself to grow bigger together. I will remain faithful to the club.' Twelve days later he signs a new contract.

2004

12 July Real president Florentino Pérez reignites transfer speculation when he says: 'My policy is to sign the best player in the world in every position. Vieira is best in his position.'

16 July Reports claim Vieira has told Wenger that he wants to leave.

23 July Pérez states that Real must sign Vieira in time for the Champions League deadline.

4 August After an £18m bid from Real is rejected, one of £23m is accepted.

9 August Wenger admits he is set to lose Vieira: 'If Patrick is focused to leave, there will be an open door.'

12 August Vieira decides to stay.