Sochaux may be fighting to regain its place in the elite of French football (4e of National), he can congratulate himself on having launched as professionals two of the most successful French people on the Old Continent: Ibrahima Konaté, at Liverpool, and Marcus Thuram at Inter. Still decisive against Como on Monday, “ Mouse » is playing the best football of his career in Lombardy. At 27, he is popular in Italy and his influence on Inter is only growing. A performance which is long overdue in selection and which is beginning to raise questions. Because at the end of a year where the Thuram family will have written the history of the Blues, he is still waiting to write his own, in the singular.
The Boot at his feet
In Milan, where he started the new season like a cannonball, he mostly ended it like the previous one, with a goal and trophies. Decisive in his team's title last year, won at San Siro, he was elected to the eleven for the 2023-2024 season and won the prize for the best goal of the season. Two categories where he could apply again for 2025, as evidenced by his great goal registered against the formation of Cesc Fàbregas. At Christmas, Inter are only three points behind the Bergamo leader, with a game in hand, and if they can largely believe in a new Scudetto, it is partly thanks to Thuram, who has become the top scorer of Italy over the calendar year (18 pawns).
For a year and a half on Giuseppe-Meazza's side, the native of Parma has still managed the feat of making people forget the “ Lu-La », formed by Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martínez and found its place in the hearts of supporters. Alongside the Argentine captain, Thuram is enjoying himself, already scoring 12 goals and 3 assists in Serie A, while if he is much more discreet in the Champions League, Inter is quietly installed in the top 8. The The Italian championship is so similar to Thuram's favorite playground that his brother came to experience it at Juventus, with success. From there to exporting your talent, things get complicated.
Wrong size in Blues
If he is part of this new generation in the French team, more human and perhaps less disconnected in certain aspects than the previous ones, he also symbolizes what prevents him from overturning everything. With the Blues, he thus experienced the failures of the 2022 World Cup final, the lost semi-final of Euro 2024 or the 2022-2023 Nations League campaign which was a complete failure. A result which would satisfy a good number of nations, but which has always had an unpleasant aftertaste once digested by the French team. Determined and never stingy with his efforts, Thuram is not unanimous among the Blues, with a series of innocuous or frustrating performances, far from the Italian Tikus. Even his good matches often end without finding the net.
However, the 27-year-old nevertheless benefits from the confidence of the coach, who calls him to each meeting. But with 2 goals in 29 selections, he will soon enter the unenviable caste of fantasy players but never regular in the selection, alongside Ousmane Dembélé and Kingsley Coman, to name a few. His year 2024 ended with a total of 0 goals and 0 assists in 13 games. As a symbol, it was even from the bench that he experienced the elimination of the Blues against Spain. A noted and remarkable spokesperson in recent months, he must now bring his voice to the field, where we are waiting to hear him shout his joy since a walk in November 2023 against Gibraltar. If the FFF could ask Nike to add some small black edging to the Blues jersey, perhaps Marcus would feel more at ease.
Benjamin Pavard, the special case
