Lauren can't be wooed out of the wilderness

Cameroon have been unable to convince the Arsenal defender Lauren to make his international comeback in this month's Confederations Cup.

The right-sided utility player, known in Africa as Lauren Etame Meyer, has not been available for his country since last year's World Cup, preferring to concentrate on his club career in England, where has has been playing at right-back for Arsenal since Lee Dixon's retirement. The Cameroon national coach, Winfried Schafer, said he would try to convince Lauren to change his mind, but has been unable to tempt him back for the eight-nation tournament in France.

Cameroon, who play in the Confederations Cup as last year's African Nations' Cup winners, named four uncapped players in their 23-man squad, including the Living-ston defender Gustave Bahoken. The other three are the goalkeepers Andre Eboue and Eric Kwekeu and striker Parfait Ngon Adjam, who plays for the Cameroon champions, Canon Yaoundé.

Other British-based players included are Manchester City's Lucien Mettomo in defence, City's Marc-Vivien Foé and Middlesbrough's Geremi in midfield, and Boro's Joseph Desiré Job up front. In all, there are 13 survivors from the 23-man squad Cameroon took to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan.

Cameroon open their Con- federations Cup campaign against Brazil in Paris on 19 June before taking on Turkey and the United States in the tournament's Group B.

While Lauren could not be tempted to take part in the tournament, his Arsenal team-mate Thierry Henry will not be kept away. The Frenchman, who has already played 63 games this season and faces a break of only three weeks before the new campaign begins, said he had not considered asking to be excused.

The French international, 25, has had a break in the United States to help recover from a gruelling domestic season in which Arsenal lost out to Manchester United in the title race and beat Southampton in the FA Cup final. But Henry's season is far from over, as he reports to Clairefontaine with his France team-mates on Thursday to begin the build-up to the Confederations Cup, which runs until 28 June.

The striker will be excused from the opening stages of Arsenal's pre-season, starting on 7 July, but will report back before their tour to Austria on 21 July. But despite his exhausting schedule, which will stretch for almost a full 12 months next term if France reach the later stages of Euro 2004, Henry maintained he had not thought about asking for a break.

"I keep saying we need a rest sometime, but I'm happy to play in the Confederations Cup," he said. "If I didn't want to do it, I'd have said something. So I do want to do it and I'm very pleased about going. Everyone's sad when they're not in their national team. This cup's in France and that'll be nice."

Henry, who won the international sportsman award at Friday's Variety Club charity luncheon, said his workload was put into perspective by Michael Watson's battle for health. The former boxer, left in a coma and told he would never walk again after a fight with Chris Eubank 11 years ago, climbed on to the stage at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London to deafening applause.

"I saw something quite amazing yesterday and that was Mr Watson," Henry said. "Seeing him gave me a lesson in that, when I feel tired, I should push a bit more.

"I received an award but I think we should have given him all the honours, because there are no words to describe what he's done."