Khephren Thuram explains how he became a midfielder. As with most children, it started in the family garden.
“My dad was a defender so my (elder) brother would be an attacker,” he explains. “Then I had to be in the middle, in the midfield.
“So maybe that’s how me and my brother got our positions and it was really, really competitive. But they were nice moments, the three of us playing, even if I finished a lot of times crying because I lost against my brother. Not that my dad ever let us win either. If he was going to win, he was going to win.”
Thuram’s father was, indeed, a “defender”. He was also one of the greatest ever: Lilian Thuram, the World Cup winner who played 142 times for France, and Khephren’s brother is Marcus, the 25-year-old France international who is out of contract at Borussia Monchengladbach this summer and is wanted by many clubs around Europe.
That is some sporting pedigree and Khephren has now also received his first call-up to the national team for the European Championship qualifiers against the Netherlands and Ireland.
The 21-year-old is 6ft 4in and has it all: technique, athleticism and an eye for goal. He also has a remarkable background – born in Italy; lived in Spain; plays in France – and speaks perfect English having been sent to an American school in Paris.
“They (the school) always taught us to be confident. They told us that we were good and not to be scared of being good,” Thuram explains. It is an interesting phrase – “not to be scared of being good”.
Thuram adds: “For me LeBron James is the greatest-ever sportsman. It’s incredible the work that he is putting in. He’s a really good role model and what I like is that American people speak about what they do. They’re not afraid to say, ‘I put the work in and look at me now’. It’s not arrogance.”
Thuram’s confidence is clear as, in a wide-ranging interview, he discusses his ambitions and hunger for self-improvement, but also how he used to pick his team-mate at Nice, Aaron Ramsey, for his side when he played the video game “FIFA” as a child, and his passion for music (an eclectic fan whose tastes include Celine Dion as well as rap), photography and reading.
The last book he read is instructive. “It was ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ by Richard Bach,” Thuram says. “It’s about a bird that doesn’t really know how to fly and it has to work out how to fly and fly in different ways. It’s working and working and people say, ‘You’re crazy, you’ll never achieve what you are trying to do’. But he’s working and working and he achieves his goal.”
Thuram is working and working and has already drawn the attention of other clubs having joined Nice from Monaco, where he made his Champions League debut at 17.
No interview with Thuram can take place without asking him about his first name – Khephren. “Named after a pharaoh,” he says. “But my parents told me that in French it means le soleil se leve (the sun is rising). So I think it’s a pretty nice name.”
Khephren was a black pharaoh, believed to be the inspiration for the features of the Great Sphinx of Giza, and Thuram’s brother Marcus was named after the black Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey. Their father has his own foundation which aims to educate people out of racism and, since retiring, Lilian has also campaigned against sexism and homophobia and advised the French government. “I am prouder of what he is doing now than what he did on the soccer pitch because I think it’s more important to defend your values,” Thuram says. “He is fighting for what he thinks is right. I share the same values. I am not him but I have the same beliefs. My name is Thuram and it makes me proud.”
Lilian Thuram won trophies at Monaco, Parma, Juventus and Barcelona as well as France. There’s a famous photo of Khephren running around among some of the stars his father played with, not least Thierry Henry.
“It was great being around him; he was a really fun guy and then I had him as a coach at Monaco and he taught me a lot and he is still teaching me now,” he says. “I was around Messi, Ronaldinho, Patrick Vieira, players like that. When I was younger I didn’t see them as players. I was just around the colleagues of my dad. Now when I see the photos, I am like, ‘Oh yeah, I was next to Messi!’ “
Khephren and Marcus both showed they had the talent with the latter having played for France at the World Cup with dreams that the Thurams may achieve a unique hat-trick.
Khephren has already played for the U-21s and a senior call-up is not far away. “It’s the aim of every soccer player to play for their national team and it would be even bigger, even greater to do that with my brother,” he says.
“What do I want to achieve? The most important thing is to be the best version of myself. If that is to play somewhere my whole life then fine. If it is to play at one of the top clubs then I want to achieve that.”
Telegraph Media Group Limited [2023]