Hugo Lloris and the never-ending question

On Sunday, he will eclipse Manuel Neuer as the goalkeeper with the most World Cup appearances. But what do we really make of France's veteran No 1, Hugo Lloris?

Sat, 17 Dec, 2022 - 06:45

Joe Callaghan in Doha

Look at Hugo Lloris for a minute. As he sits pondering questions and answers, he scratches his beard. A lot. He kneads his fingers over and back across his cheeks as he talks, twizzles some hairs near his nostrils as he tries to find the right word in English, pulls his chin lower as he peers for the questioner in the crowd.

It’s a damn fine beard, smooth and immaculately shaped, thinning out a little after the cheekbones but nothing major. At 35 there’s a small shake of salt and pepper in it too. Why shouldn’t he enjoy it? It’s almost perfect. Almost…but not quite. There’s a little gap, no wider than the lines in a thin-line copy book, between the beard and sideburns. And when you see it, you can’t unsee it. Why the gap? Why not blend it in and make it complete? Why can’t he close the gap and get it right?

Then you catch yourself and realize A) you’ve been staring intently a little too long at the man and B) you’re doing it, exactly the issue you were pondering on your way to the press conference. Namely: why do we find the faults in Hugo Lloris?

On Sunday at Lusail Stadium, the goalkeeper can become the first player in history to captain a team to two World Cup triumphs. In an era when our sports news TV tickers and Twitter timelines scroll with breathless claims of records and history, that’s a proper, weighty piece of it. Yet it’s highly unlikely that much of the pre-match build-up provided by your broadcaster of choice will focus on him. If they do, it’s likely it will be in vague and questioning tones about whether he is in fact a weakness.

Lloris is many things and likely many more in private, where he spends a lot of his life. But to describe him as a weakness is a lazy analysis, and mostly folly. Does he have weaknesses? Not many actually but yes he does and one of them can be acute. For club and country his footwork under pressure has never been good and has too often been bad. Four years ago in Russia’s World Cup final he gifted Mario Mandzukic a goal with a horrible misstep.

Ahead of the quarter-final with England last week, Lloris was asked how he felt about being identified as the weak link in the French team. The question was asked in such a way that it suggested those doing the identifying were some hidden, shadowy group. Nope. It was the English media themselves.

“It's Hugo Lloris vs Jordan Pickford and there's only one winner” screamed The Daily Telegraph, a headline that immediately brought to mind an Eamon Dunphy observation from the 2006 World Cup. "The Daily Telegraph is an irony free zone,” Dunphy had said. “They think God is English.”

But they were half-right. There was only one winner that night. It was Lloris, who made a string of impressive saves, came off his line bravely and also possibly helped psyche out Harry Kane for the decisively skied spot-kick. He followed it up with another stellar performance against Morocco on Wednesday night back in Al Bayt. He got a strong hand to a dipping Azzedine Ounahi effort early on and when Morocco piled on the pressure, he brilliantly tipped Jawad El Yamiq’s bicycle kick on to the post.

The clean sheet was Lloris’s first of this tournament — having kept three on the way to lifting the last World Cup — but he hasn’t conceded from open play for four games. All of this behind a an inexperienced and reshuffled defence, centre-half Jules Kounde repurposed as right back, Theo Hernandez thrust in on the left after his brother’s injury and Ibrahima Konate and Dayot Upamecano, 17 caps combined, covering for Presnel Kimpembe’s absence.

Lloris lives life on a serenely even keel but the English barbs had lit a fire in him. “He has been playing in England for 10 years and he thought they knew what he was about," a squad source told French journalist Julien Laurens. "That gave him even more anger, desire and extra motivation.”

Given that he turns 36 on Stephen’s Day, Lloris knows this is his last World Cup. But even amid all of the injury upheaval in the squad he marshals, he appears determined to carry the lessons from his first one of these all the way to the final whistle at the Lusail. He and back-up Steve Mandanda are the only survivors from South Africa 2010, a tournament when France and French football bottomed out, a laughing stock as they went on strike against Raymond Domenech.

It’s illuminating now to go back to the words of a then 23-year-old with 14 caps to his name when he reflected on it a month after coming home.

“It was totally stupid,” he said. “We acted more like a team in the bus than on the pitch. We all want to restore the image of Les Bleus. [We need] to make sure what happened in South Africa never happens again, that we don't self-destruct in that way ever again.”

The pragmatic, unfussy way Deschamps and his captain have met all of their World Cup moments these past four years certainly lived up to that, more than restoring French reputations. Lloris has already broken and reset some records out here too. He’s passed Lillian Thuram to become France’s all-time record cap holder. On Sunday, he will eclipse Manuel Neuer as the goalkeeper with the most World Cup appearances.

“We have to keep the same serene approach,” Lloris said ahead of the semi-final. “We are getting closer to something great. The more forward we go, the more focused I am.”

Maybe it’s time for more people to focus. To appreciate Hugo Lloris and the longevity and consistency that has brought him this close to big history. Maybe even admire the beard…and don’t mind the gap.