It’s easy to forget that, before he moved to Tottenham after making a real name for himself around Europe at Lyon, Hugo Lloris spent three seasons as Nice’s first-team goalkeeper.
Born in the southern town and with the club from 1997 to 2008, the 30-year-old played alongside some of the club’s icons, such as Bakary Koné and Cyril Rool.
The latter of the two, who also played for Marseille, Bordeaux and Monaco in his career, was presented with a ‘former Aiglon’ trophy by Nice ahead of this weekend’s clash against Lyon, which Lucien Favre’s side ended up losing 5-0.
However, before this, he had a quick chat with Actufoot, where he was asked to create a team of his favourite players.
Choosing a 4-2-3-1 formation, he didn’t hesitate once when picking his goalkeeper: “Hugo Lloris. He’s quite simply the best. Whether it is the man or the footballer. I knew him when he was young. He was already impressing. You could see it straight away.”
Once he was done picking the 11 players, which included the likes of Gabriel Heinze and Hatem Ben Arfa, Rool also picked the current Spurs captain as his captain for his dream XI.
He explained: “Because I adore him. He doesn’t speak a lot, but that doesn’t matter, he doesn’t need to. His talent and his charisma take over. He talks when he needs to”.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this about the Tottenham goalkeeper, with even the player himself talking about his ability to be discreet but have a big personality when needed in the past.
Either way, you’ll find few current and former teammates disputing Lloris’ ability as both a player and captain, and that’s why Rool would give him the armband in a heartbeat.
