Years scouted: 2001–02 through 2005–06
There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and Juventus finishing tops in Serie A. Their 36 league titles in Italy is by far the most from any Italian club, and they’ve accumulated on their own the same amount of championships as the combined total of AC Milan (18) and Inter (18). The last time that Juventus didn’t finish tops in their domestic league was the 2010–11 season, when they were still in the midst of recovering from the Calciopoli scandal in the mid 2000's. Even in more recent seasons when underlying metrics would’ve suggested that their time on the mountain top was coming to an end, here they were still grinding out results and retaining their crown. It’s impossible to overstate just how dominant Juventus have been domestically.
With that said, even clubs as dominate as Juventus have dealt with their own shallow periods. There were the years that followed Calciopoli, which included two 7th place finishes in 2009–10 and 2010–11. After winning the title in 1985–86, Juventus didn’t win the scudetto until the 1994–95 season. They went trophyless in a three season period from 1998–99 through 2000–01, which included them falling short to Roma in one of the most exciting title races that Italian football has seen. The summer of 2001 saw Juventus selling Zinedine Zidane for a world record fee to Real Madrid, using those funds to help bring in a host of big name players like Gianluigi Buffon, Pavel Nedved, and Marcelo Salas to help spur them onto another dominant period for the club.
That summer spending in 2001 for Juventus included acquiring Lilian Thuram, his transfer fee at the time was the most ever spent by a club on a defender. He’s one of the most accomplished players from his era, a man who won plenty at both domestic and international level. He’s also part of a group of famous dads in football who have children that are currently following in their footsteps, and in the case of Marcus Thuram, he’s someone with the potential to have a strong career in his own right (readers of my previous work will know how highly I’ve rated Marcus Thuram in the past). With Lilian Thuram, I decided to pick his five seasons with Juventus in large part because he played an ample amount of minutes at either right back or at centerback, which made him an interesting test case. I was curious about figuring out whether he provided more value on offense as a RB than people remember, along with how his defensive style at both positions contributed to those dominant defenses that Juventus had in those seasons.
Scouting Report
Compared to some of the players that have been profiled in the series, it is fair to say that Thuram was a bit robotic as a passer. At times, you could see him try to map out scenarios and hold onto the ball long enough to invite oncoming pressure. This would lead to situations where he’d have to initiate hurriedly, something he wasn’t particularly good at. With that said, he shouldn’t be confused as being a bad passer. In particular, he had good touch on long aerial passes into the final third and would attempt them rather frequently. Some of this was due to the style of play that Juventus had under Fabio Capello where there was a lot of attempted long passes into the final third, especially centrally to win the second ball and establish possession. When he was in the opposition half, he could spot and hit teammates darting onto the right flank into the final third with ground passes on a regular basis. If he was a stronger crosser of the ball, his passing would‘ve been at another level because of the added threat he would’ve presented in the final third.
Perhaps the most surprising thing with Thuram as a fullback was that his positioning was more aggressive than perhaps he’s historically been given credit for. At times, he would moonlight as a winger high up the pitch and attempting to create quick combination plays into the edge of the box or further forward. This was helped by his ability to do both the conventional overlapping run and even moving inwards with his movement if the wide space was already occupied. This varied positioning would’ve been amplified even more if Thuram was able to consistently beat his marker off the dribble. He was okay at attacking opponents who were quickly closing out on him, particularly because his strength allowed him to almost always get inside positioning. He also had a bit of elusiveness to create some breathing space for his passing. However, he had next to no value attacking in a static 1v1 situation and often settled for recycling possession.
2004–05 and 2005–06 marked Thuram’s final two seasons with Juventus, which saw him play alongside Fabio Cannavaro in a centerback pairing. Given his advancing age + previous experience, the positional change made sense but it did put a damper on his opportunities as an initiator. The majority of his forward passes were aerials towards the final third for the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Again, his touch on those passes were good but not necessarily earth shattering. There wasn’t a lot of line breaking passes into the central areas. Perhaps the biggest thing that wasn’t utilized to its fullest capability was attacking open space as a ball carrier and initiating on the move. In the brief moments where he was aggressive in this department, the results were good because he could still move fairly well (relative to the average CB at the time), and had legitimate touch on his passes. Perhaps in today’s game or even on another team in his era, this would’ve been used further.
Thuram was versatile as a defender, and while that term does tend to get overused, I do think it’s accurate as a description. When he played as a RB, it was a regular occurrence to see him press up high to take away time and space for the opponent. He was good at knowing when to sink inwards to deal with runners, to go along with his general awareness to execute different type of rotations. As a central defender, that level of awareness that he possessed remained strong along with his strength to dispossess nearby opponents, also helped him in cleaning up messes inside his own penalty box. I also found him to have really good timing on executing offside traps. His slide tackles had the level of aggression that you would associate with football in the 2000's, but he still was able to time these actions so that he would often come out on the better end and cleanly win the ball back.
If there was one defensive trait that was constant with Thuram during his time at Juventus, whether he played as a RB or at CB, it was his hesitancy to engage when defending in isolation. When he would be situated on the right side defending in his own third, he would rather retreat slightly and concede crossing opportunities. His conservativeness in engaging defensively during these moments was particularly striking during his final two seasons when he played primarily as a CB, compared to how aggressive he’d be elsewhere in having to put out potential fires. Perhaps some of this could be that in his early 30’s, he wasn’t the most fluid at changing stances when moving laterally in these situations so he would rather play it conservative than truly get left in the dust as a statuesque figure against high level attackers (there are a couple of instances in the compilation below versus a post-prime Ronaldo that illustrates this).
Analysis:
It wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that Thuram’s abilities on offense were something of a mixed bag. His passing was more functional than spellbinding, though some of that was perhaps a product of playing sides managed by Fabio Capello. His touch on long aerials were good, along with his ground passes into the right wing in the final third. Positioning wise when played on the right side, he was utilized further up the pitch and more aggressively than some might remember but it’s still nowhere near the standards of what we see today from fullbacks. He also loses attacking value in the final third because of his ineffectual crossing. The positional change to the center of defense did limit his influence as an on-ball initiator, which is a bit of a shame because he could’ve been more impactful as a modern ball-playing CB with more of a free reign. If you looked at everything outside of his individual defending on the ball, you’d be hard press to find much fault with his game. He was great at cleaning up messes, holding a defensive line (especially when played centrally), and being proactive to press high up the pitch. But there were clear issues with his 1v1 defending in his later years, which takes his defending down a notch or two.
Even in today’s game with the advancement of both individual and team metrics, it’s still hard to evaluate how much defensive value a central defender has, so one could guess how much harder it is when analyzing players of previous eras with next to no data to work with. Juventus conceded the least amount of goals in Serie A and only Roma conceded a lesser amount of shots on target (take that second fact with some salt since that I’m not sure what source FBref is using for historical SoT data). Those numbers improved in Thuram’s first season and remained very strong in 2002–03 before a noticeable spike in goals conceded in 2003–04.
The 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons in Serie A were when Juventus was at their apex defensively, conceding 0.71 goals per game in 04–05 and a miniscule 0.55 goals per game rate in 05–06. It should also be noted that Fabio Cannavaro came to the club in the summer of 2004, which allowed them to have him reunite alongside Thuram and Buffon as a terrifying defensive trio. Like what was said in Kaká’s profile regarding Calciopoli, it’s understandable if one was to look at anything regarding Juventus in those two seasons and completely throw it out considering the nature of the scandal. Juventus weren’t at quite the same level in terms of defense in the Champions League during most of Thuram’s five season at Turin, though their 2004–05 CL campaign of seven goals conceded in 12 games was impressive. If anything, I feel the most confident in giving Thuram more plaudits from a defensive anchor standpoint for what Juve did in his first two seasons.
Out of the players that have been analyzed to this point, the version of Lilian Thuram at Juventus was arguably the one that I felt the strongest in terms of someone who played in the right era for what his skillset was. There have been others where I came out at the end thinking that they were ahead of their time, especially in the case of Roberto Carlos. I did not get that feeling when watching Thuram. His tendency for aggressive (but clean) tackling, not being particularly robust offensively as a RB or CB, and his all-action defending off the ball added up to someone who fit in quite well with where football was at in the 2000’s. This shouldn’t be seen as a demerit against him when judging his value, but rather an acknowledgment of his game being a product of the era he played in.
Even after going through the research, ballparking Lilian Thuram’s overall value from 2002–06 was quite difficult. I think his offense was somewhere between neutral and a slight positive, and if forced to choose, I would lean more towards the neutral end because of my skepticism with his touch as a crosser. His off-ball defense was great or at least damn near close to it, but his weakness in defending 1v1’s were legitimate and chip away at his overall defensive value. Even then, he still scaled well onto dominant Serie A defenses during the majority of that 2002–06 stretch, and was probably more of the driving influence in his first two seasons. Without looking into what he did at Parma, it would be reckless on my part to say whether or not his years with Juventus were him at the peak of his powers or rather the declining phase of his career. I do think that what we saw from Lilian Thuram in those five seasons was a very good player who fit the era he played in, but there were just enough issues with him as an on-ball initiator that I wouldn’t consider Thuram a great player at that point of his career.
Previous Profiles
#1: Zinedine Zidane
#2: Roy Keane
#3: Claude Makélélé
#4: Steven Gerrard
#5: Kaká
#6: Patrick Vieira
#7: Adriano
#8: Roberto Carlos
