Just a year on from Arsenal's history-making invincibles campaign, a fresh-faced 17-year-old called Alex Song impressed then-manager Arsene Wenger enough to earn a professional contract at the club but what has happened to him in recent times?
What happened to Alex Song?
Signing initially on loan from SC Bastia, the young midfielder registered five appearances in the Premier League before the Gunners pulled the trigger on signing him permanently on a long-term deal, costing around £1m in June 2006.
After a loan spell to former top-flight outfit Charlton Athletic and a string of starts in the League Cup, the Cameroon powerhouse would finally make his breakthrough in 2008/09. Then aged 21, he featured 48 times across all competitions and emerged as the perfect complement to Cesc Fabregas in the heart of the engine room.
By 2011/12, the Spaniard departed to his boyhood club FC Barcelona, leaving a creative void behind, which saw Song then step up to provide more playmaking responsibility alongside Aaron Ramsey. He ended that campaign with 11 top-flight assists in 34 games. It saw him finish in second place as the Gunners' player of the season by the fanbase but as was often the case, such exploits saw some of Europe's biggest teams come calling.
In August 2012, the then 24-year-old signed for the aforementioned Catalan giants in a £15m deal, becoming their second major signing of the window after left-back Jordi Alba and once again linking up with former his former teammate, Fabregas.
Transfermarkt actually valued Song at around £25m just a few months before his departure, so perhaps Wenger did not win the boardroom battle, but he would go onto be proven correct, in the end.
Song struggled to garner the same sort of minutes in Spain but did admit publicly that his reasons for joining were purely financially motivated. When he did play, it was usually out of position at centre-back, meaning he could never replicate the creative form he displayed in his final swansong at the Emirates Stadium.
A couple of loan spells at West Ham United followed before his uninspiring career took him to Russia to play for Rubin Kazan. Whilst training at London Colney, Swiss Super League outfit Sion then took a punt on him in 2018 but by 2020, his time there was cut short as he was one of nine players unwilling to take a pay cut during the coronavirus pandemic.
Where is Alex Song now?
The ex-Gunners star, now in his mid-30s, has landed in the Republic of Djibouti, where he plies his trade for Arta Solar 7.
In his very first season back in his home continent, Song guided the team to their first-ever league title and even helped them retain it the following campaign.
He remains at Arta Solar 7, whose ground holds up to 20,000, which is nearly 2% of the country's population. Off the pitch, the 35-year-old has multiple business interests, ranging from his own construction company and fashion label.
Given how his career went so drastically downhill after leaving Arsenal, it's fair to suggest that he made a massive mistake in chasing the money as that final campaign in the red and white of Woolwich London could have catapulted his name into contention to at least be considered a potential world-class midfielder.
"Song is amazing because he came as a centre-back, becomes a defensive midfielder, and now he plays like a striker," Wenger once lauded.
Oh, how things could have been very, very different for Song and Arsenal, but given how things turned out in the end, it's fair to suggest that the Frenchman was right to sell his bustling prodigy for just £15m in 2012.