Champions League: Marcus and Khephren Thuram creating their own legacies
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
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After taking in the glittering career of father Lilian during childhood, brothers Marcus and Khephren Thuram are writing their own stories in the UEFA Champions League.
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As the sons of FIFA World Cup and UEFA EURO winning France defender Lilian, an early peek behind the curtain at some of football’s greatest stages was inevitable for Marcus Thuram and younger brother Khephren.
“I remember him winning the [Serie A] championship with Juventus, we went onto the pitch and we have a photo of all of us with Mum,” recalls Marcus.
Further inspiration came when an 11-year-old Marcus visited the training grounds of Barcelona, the club where Lilian would retire in 2008, and enjoyed a remarkable encounter with a young Lionel Messi.
“I'd gone to training and I'd left my boots at home,” the now 27-year-old remembers, “and the player whose shoe size was closest to mine was Lionel Messi.
“At the time, Messi was the incredible player that he is now, but for me, as a child, he was just one of my dad's team-mates who lent me a pair of boots to go and train with.”
Messi, who won four Champions League titles with the Catalan club, even let Marcus keep the boots. However, in a decision that haunts the Inter forward to this day, he gifted them to one of his junior team-mates at Olympique de Neuilly.
“I saw the reaction of one of my best friends at the time, who went crazy when he saw the boots,” Marcus explains. “I told him: ‘If you like the boots so much, you can hold on to them,’ and gave them to him.”
For Khephren, who turns 24 in March, the memories are less vivid, but nonetheless impactful. “Do I remember seeing him playing on the field? No, not really,” the midfielder says of his father, “but I always knew that he played for Juventus and Barcelona.”
Either way, that early inspiration has paid off, shaping footballing journeys which now see the pair celebrating successes of their own and competing in the Champions League.
Last season, Marcus joined his father in that illustrious class of Italian champions, registering 26 league goal involvements for Simone Inzaghi’s title-winning Inter. As the Scudetto was paraded around the Stadio San Siro, Lilian was there to share in his son’s delight in a full-circle moment.
Khephren will be hoping to follow suit after leaving Nice in the summer to join Juventus, a club with whom Lilian made 204 appearances, including 45 in the Champions League. “To play in Turin, to play for the club that my dad used to play for, it’s wonderful,” says the France international.
Juventus also have ambitions in the Champions League, currently placing 19th ahead of a Matchday 6 meeting with Manchester City, and Khephren, who has returned to the competition for the first time since his debut campaign with Monaco in 2018/19, is relishing the challenge.
“When you’re on the way back to the academy with all your friends, and you’ve just played in the Champions League, it’s something magical,” says Khephren, just 17 years old at the time of his debut. “To play again now, and to play a bigger part, is something beautiful.”
Second-placed Inter are one of only three sides who remain unbeaten in the league phase (the others being Liverpool and Atalanta), but they must emerge unscathed from a trip to Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen in order to extend that streak on Matchday 6.
Thuram’s only goal of the Champions League season so far was an important one, handing Inter a stoppage time victory at Young Boys, but the forward is hungry for more.
“In the Champions League, it seems the lights shine a bit brighter, the pitch feels more beautiful, and the fans are more enthusiastic,” he says. “Scoring on a Tuesday or a Wednesday night is special.”
With both sides aiming high in the competition, the prospect of a Champions League final meeting between the two is something that the brothers have playfully considered.
But while others may focus on containing their nerves, Marcus and Khephren might be more concerned with holding in their giggles, should the occasion arise.
“Champions League final, whatever final, if he’s on the pitch, it’s impossible not to tease him,” explains Marcus. “I’m going to seek him out, I can’t help it. That’s something that goes beyond football.”