Thuram also won the 2000 European Champions with Les Bleus during a glittering career that saw him represent his country a mega 142 times
WITH 142 caps for France, Lilian Thuram is the most capped player in his nation’s history.
An athletic, committed and tactically adept defender, he could play at right-back or centre-back and was part of the fabled France team that won the World Cup on home soil in 1998.
He added the European Championship just two years later during what was a glittering career.
Now 46, he’s gained a reputation as a political activist, campaigner and charity worker since his retirement and is also a UNICEF Ambassador.
Thuram was born in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in 1972 and only arrived in France at the age of nine.
Thuram’s mother, Mariana had already left the island four years earlier in search of work in France, leaving her son behind to be looked after by relatives.
He never really knew his father.
When his mother finally got on her feet, she sent for her five children and the family set up home near Paris in the South-East suburb of Fontainebleu.
When he was a child, Lilian Thuram actually wanted to become a priest.
And, bizarrely, they both came in the same game.
Rewind to the semifinal of the World Cup in France in 1998.
The host nation are losing 1-0 to Croatia in the Stade de France when Thuram finally gets off the mark, taking a neat pass from Youri Djorkaeff to poke the ball home.
Then, on 70 minutes, he cuts in from the right wing before curling the sweetest of left-foot strikes inside the far post.
Thuram just dropped to his knees. France erupted. And Les Bleus were in the Final.
“It was like a trance,” he said in 2007.
“I still have no recollection of what happened and, even though I try, I can't put it together. I needed [coach] Aime Jacquet and the other players to tell me that we had won, and that we were in the World Cup final.”
While winning the World Cup was undoubtedly the pinnacle of his playing career, Thuram added the 2000 European Championship title to his resume, and the 2003 Confederations Cup.
Not that the latter counts for much really.
He also racked up nine trophies as a club player with Monaco, Parma, Juventus and Barcelona.
Could have scored a few more goals though.
After his World Cup triumph, Thuram was surprised to see his estranged father, Joseph Lother, come out of the woodwork and offer his congratulations.
Thuram was having none of it.
“My conception of fatherhood is different from his,” he said.
“A father has to raise his son. A father has to give him advice. A father clears a path for him. My mother did all of that for me.”
At which point, Joseph Lister slunk off into the shadows again.
Alongside Laurent Blanc, Marcel Desailly and Bixtente Lizarazu, Lilian Thuram formed part of a defensive back line that only conceded two goals in their seven games in the 1998 World Cup Finals on their way to victory.
His French teammate Vincent Candela called him a “monstre” to play against, adding that “no-one wants to be marked by Thuram. They know the game is already halfway lost.”
It wasn’t just his achievements on the pitch that set Lilian Thuram apart.
After his part in France’s World Cup win in 1998, he was made a member of the Legion d’Honneur, the country’s highest civilian honour.
And, in September 2017, meanwhile, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Stockholm for his work fighting racism.
When his time at Barcelona ended, Thuram had lined up a one-year deal to end his playing days back in his hometown at Paris St. Germain.
But the deal never happened as a hitherto undiagnosed heart defect emerged during his medical and, faced with the choice of playing on and and the risks that that entailed, Thuram decided to call it a day.
After his retirement, Thuram started the Lilian Thuram Foundation with the aim of fighting racism through education.
It’s proved to be the springboard for Thuram to campaign on a wide range of issues, including same-sex marriage and tackling far-right politics and he’s become a regular on current affairs programmes in France.
And he’s committed to giving something back. In September 2006, he and Patrick Vieira invited 70 black African refugees that had been evicted from their squat to watch France’s Euro 2008 qualifier between France and Italy.
"It was to start discussion, not just to give these African guys a day at the football,” he explained.
“But to show society what they were doing to fellow human beings.”
