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Zinedine Zidane might grab the headlines, but a lot of people - Zidane himself - will tell you that defender Lilian Thuram is actually the heart and soul of the defending World Cup champion French.
Between his work for Italian champions Juventus and the French national squad, Thuram has come to be regarded as perhaps the world's premier defender - a crafty veteran willing to do yeoman work and also capable of sparking the French attack with runs down the right side or well-placed, booming clearance kicks.
No less a player than two-time FIFA Player of the Year Zidane suggested after France's surprise World Cup title in 1998 that Thuram might be the world's best player, period.
Long a star in the Italian Serie A, it was at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 where Thuram cemented his reputation and, oddly enough, became a hero for his scoring. Odd because he's only scored two goals in 71 caps. It just happened that those two goals came in the same game, and not just any game.
Moments after David Suker scored to put upstart Croatia ahead 1-0 in the 1998 World Cup semifinal, Thuram knotted up the game with a strike from the right side. About 22 minutes later, Thuram duplicated the trick, giving France a 2-1 win and a chance to win the World Cup.
Thuram may be the greatest of the corps of French players who come from all corners of the former French empire. A native of Guadeloupe, Thuram moved to Paris as a nine-year-old and soon developed a passion for soccer, leading him to begin his professional career in Monaco as a 20-year-old.
A veteran of Les Bleus since 1994, Thuram was also becoming a marquee player for Parma of the Italian Serie A, leading to a bidding war for his services. Juventus eventually won out, shelling out a transfer fee of 22-million pounds.
Like so many of the world's great defenders, he'll
be at his most effective at the World Cup, when he's
noticed the least.
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