it was the fulfilment of the ultimate footballing fantasy. Only 20 men had done it previously, each one a titan, a name to stir awe and respect. Think of Bobby Moore and Carlos Alberto, Franz Beckenbauer and Diego Maradona. On a tumultuous evening in Moscow last July, Hugo Lloris became the 21st, when he hoisted aloft the World Cup as the captain of France.
It was an occasion of high drama, with even the elements reinforcing the feel of a primal epic – thunder, lightning and tipping rain framing France’s 4-2 win over Croatia. When Lloris got his hands on the trophy, and fireworks and golden confetti lit the scene, it was tempting to wonder how he could possibly drink it all in.
To spend time in the company of a World Cup-winning captain is a rare treat and when Lloris reflects on the triumph, he describes it as the consecration of his career, with the spiritual overtones seeming entirely appropriate. “We put a stamp to France national team history and for the rest of our life, no?” he says, and it is surely a strange sensation to be aware, in the moment, of the creation of history.
What stands out from Lloris’s debrief is the emotion that would overwhelm him a few days later, when the open-top bus had been parked and the various functions and celebrations had been attended. “You feel so empty, mentally and physically,” he says. “Because it’s a long tournament, it demands a lot of energy and a lot of emotion. I remember I needed one day to stay in bed and just stop and disconnect a little bit because I was completely empty in my body and my mind.”
Lloris’s admission is slightly jarring. Empty? Are World Cup winners not supposed to walk on air for the rest of their lives or, at least, the rest of that summer? Lloris, though, has long come across as a darkly serious and somewhat introspective thinker, to whom the stab of negative emotions are more pronounced. He goes further with the heresy.
“To be honest, the football and the time is going so fast,” he says. “I don’t want to say that I’ve forgotten about the World Cup but, for me, it belongs to the past. I don’t have time to make a step backwards and think about the World Cup.
“Every time people talk about this moment – it gives you a lot of positive energy. But as a professional and as a man I am just focused on today and tomorrow. Maybe when I will be retired, I will think in a different way but it’s not the case at the moment.”
Lloris’s professionalism is ingrained into every fibre of his being. The 32-year-old Tottenham goalkeeper exists not for the past or even the near future, merely in a bubble from day to day; working, pushing himself, keeping his focus sharp. The season for him at Spurs has been challenging. There was the scandal of his drink-driving conviction in September – the club captain makes for the least likely of felons – and a thigh muscle tear that ruled him out for five weeks until early October.
Mauricio Pochettino, the Spurs manager, said that the massive strain of the goalkeeper’s arrest had played a part in the injury, which was sustained at Manchester United in late August. Lloris was in the Spurs team for the Premier League opener at Newcastle on 11 August – four weeks after the World Cup final – and the lack of a longer summer break always felt problematic.
“You need maybe more time to get back,” Lloris says. “It is difficult for the club and the manager to manage that and for all the players involved at this World Cup it was not easy to move on to another season. For all of the French players, we needed more time to find a new rhythm.”
This season Lloris has made a clutch of high-profile errors, although his critics would do well to remind themselves of how often he makes pivotal saves. There is an argument that such moments have come to be taken for granted.
“In life, you have des épreuves [hardships],” he says. “There are ups and downs to deal with but I am ready to fight and I feel my legs and my mind are ready for that. Today, it is too early to make a statement of my season. I just try my best.”
Spurs have battled through the unsettling delays to their new stadium completion while the lack of signings, in the summer and winter windows, have increased the squeeze on the squad. Yet, by any reckoning, the season has been a success so far. The club sit third in the league, remaining an outside bet for the title, while they have a Champions League last-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund to look forward to at Wembley on Wednesday.
Do not expect any tub-thumping from Lloris, as his team attempt to overhaul Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of the table, a mission that continues against Leicester at Wembleyon Sunday. It is not easy to trust when you live in the public eye and Lloris was certainly bruised by the coverage of his drink-driving trial, even if he brought it upon himself through an uncharacteristic error of judgment. To him, the chapter is now closed.
“It is important to believe in yourself but it is important to have sense, too,” he says. “The main target for the club and for the team is to get the top four for the fourth time in a row. You need to look at the clubs behind because everything can turn very quickly. But you can look ahead, too.
“We are in the position we deserve because in the league, we are quite consistent but at the moment there are two teams who have done much better than us. We will see what will be in March and if we will be in a place to compete for the title or just the top four. That doesn’t mean we don’t have ambition. The ambition is to win every game until the end of the season.”
Lloris is wedded to the club’s project, which is based on improvements to the infrastructure and year-on-year progress on the field. Like Pochettino, he preaches patience. Spurs can punch above their weight – against metrics such as transfer-market spend, say – but they cannot control or legislate for what their rivals do.
“We are Tottenham and we have the humility to say that in a different club, a bigger institution, they are used to winning because of the heaviness of the institution,” he says. “When you wear the jersey of some clubs, you have this pressure every day. It’s not the case in Tottenham. There is a great history, it’s a great club in England but it’s not the type of club that is used to win every year. It needs more time.
“It is quite simple. There is a project with the manager, you either like it or you don’t like it and if you don’t like it, you move to another place. We are going the right way because every season we are improving. I wish that we will be rewarded for all this effort – maybe not this season, maybe next season or maybe in two seasons, we don’t know. The most important is to keep faith, to keep belief and be ready to fight.”
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