Lilian Thuram

Ruddy Lilian Thuram-Ulien famous as Lillian Thuram was born on 1 January 1972 in Pointe-à-Pitre Guadeloupe. He is an ex-professional football defender and is the most capped player in the history of the France national team of all times.Most appearances also have been recorded by Thuram which is 16 times at European Championship.

He got the experience of working with different senior football clubs. In 1991 he joined AS Monaco of the French Ligue1, later started moving firstly, to Parama F.C. 1996-2001 and then Juventus for £25 million 2001 – 2006 and 2006 – 2008 to Barcelona. His Italian experience was with together with the Juventus. He earned 4 Italian Scudetti. Thuram announced his retirement from his professional Soccer career in 2008, when a  heart defect took the life of his brother.

1998, winning the title of World Champion, he became an essential part of the France’s triumph at Euro 2000. It was Thuram’s efforts the team was ranked the number one by FIFA for the year of 2001-2002. He was a part of 2002 and 2006’s World Cup and Euro 1996, 2004 and 2008.

He is known as the best defender of all the time but he scored two international goals in the same game of the semi finals against Croatia in the 1998 World Cup. Thumas secured the Bronze Ball as the third most valuable player of the tournament.

Thomas played against the  Romania in a group match on 9^th June 2008 and he became the very first player who was giving his 15^th appearance in the finals of the UEFA European Championship. 14 appearance record previously were having by Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Karel Poborsky. He played games and raised his appearances to 16.

“Thuram has written a book called “My Black Stars” that discussed inspirational people

of color who have inspired him. In recent comments published by the Milan sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Thuram painted Italian society in a pejorative light.”

 

“Racist Italy”

“In Italy there is racism. Italian society is racist” says Thuram to explain the racist chants hurled at Mario Balotelli of Inter Milan by supporters at many Italian grounds.

“It needs to be pointed out what the Juventus supporters said,” stated Thuram at a press conference. “That a black man can’t be Italian. The racism that is found in Italian football is the racism that is present in society.”