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Lilian Thuram

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Lilian Thuram
Personal information
Full name Ruddy Lilian Thuram-Ulien
Height 1.82 m (5 ft 11+1⁄2 in)
Position(s) Centre back
Team information
Current team
 FC Barcelona
Number 21
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of June 3, 2008

Lilian Thuram (born Ruddy Lilian Thuram-Ulien, January 1 1972 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, France) is a male French professional football defender who plays for FC Barcelona and is the most capped player in the history of the France national team. He has played at the top flight in France, Italy and Spain for over 15 seasons, including ten in the Serie A. With France, Thuram won the 1998 World Cup and the Euro 2000.

Club career

Thuram's football career began with AS Monaco of the French Ligue 1 in 1991. Later transfers included Parma (1996–2001) and Juventus (2001–2006). He won the the Scudetto twice with Juventus (it was originally four times, but the club was stripped of the 2004/05 and 2005/06 titles due to the match-fixing scandal) and a UEFA Cup with Parma in 1998/99.

On July 24 2006, Thuram signed with Spanish club FC Barcelona.[2].

International career

For France, Thuram has appeared in 139 international matches and holds the record for the most capped player for France since June 2006, when he broke Marcel Desailly's mark of 116. After becoming world champion in 1998, he then was also an integral part of France's triumph at Euro 2000, which led to the team being ranked by FIFA as number one from 2001-2002. He also played in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, 2006 FIFA World Cup, Euro 96, and Euro 2004.

1998 World Cup

Thuram has only scored two international goals, both of which came in one game – the 1998 World Cup semi-final against Croatia, in which France came back to win 2–1 and advance to the final. France defeated Brazil 3–0 to capture their inaugural World Cup and Thuram won the Bronze Ball as the third most valuable player in the tournament, being one of the key full-backs in France's defence, which only conceded 2 goals in seven games.

2006 World Cup

After a brief international retirement, France coach Raymond Domenech convinced Thuram to return to the French team on August 17, 2005, along with fellow "Golden Generation" teammates Zinedine Zidane and Claude Makélélé, as Les Bleus struggled to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. Thuram's centre-back partnership with William Gallas was to be the foundation for France's progression to the final. Thuram earned his 116th cap for France in the group stage match against South Korea in Leipzig on 18 June, 2006. In that game he equalled Desailly's record number of caps, which he broke in the final group stage match, a 2–0 win over Togo in Cologne on 23 June, 2006, winning his 117th cap. He was named the Budweiser Man of the Match in France's semi-final 1–0 victory against Portugal, coincidentally the same distinction he had earned eight years ago at the semi-finals of the 1998 World Cup.

Political engagement

During the French riots in November 2005, Thuram took a position against Nicolas Sarkozy, the head of the conservative political party UMP and President of the French Republic. Thuram was opposed to the verbal attacks against young people that the then-Minister made when he talked about the "scum", and he said that Nicolas Sarkozy never lived in a suburban estate.

[3]

On September 6 2006, Thuram sparked controversy when he invited 80 people, who were expelled by French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy from a flat where they lived illegally, to the football match between France and Italy. [4][5] He has also engaged in campaigns that favour the Catalan language and that favour the independence of Roussillon (Catalonia Nord) from France[citation needed].

Honours

Thuram was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.

In 2006, he was named a member of the FIFPro World XI team.

Preceded by FIFA World Cup Bronze Ball
1998 		Succeeded by

Notes

  1. ^ ESPN
  2. ^ Barcelona.cat
  3. ^ "Soccer heroes blame social injustice". The Times. 2005-11-10. Retrieved 2006-12-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Footballer plays political host". The Times. 2006-09-07. Retrieved 2006-12-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ If you can keep a cool head

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lilian Thuram.
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