He silenced the most skeptical. In this case the British press, very little praise for him a few hours before this quarter-final, won by the Blues against the Three-Lions. Hugo Lloris, yet well known to observers across the Channel – he has been playing for Tottenham since 2012 – had been singled out as the potential “Achilles heel” of the Blues to use the expression of the Telegraph. By achieving a capital performance against the English, the former Lyonnais recalled how decisive he knew how to be in major meetings for the Blues. And according to his coach, Didier Deschamps, the comments of the English press are perhaps not unrelated to this XXL performance. “He was certainly touched”, admitted the boss of the Blues in the Téléfoot program on TF1 this Sunday.
It must be said that British skepticism towards Hugo Lloris is no longer really a secret. “I know he won the World Cup, but he’s not good enough. He makes too many mistakes. Antonio Conte needs a new goalkeeper,” said Rio Ferdinand after the Arsenal-Tottenham match last October. A meeting won 3-1 by the Gunners and during which Hugo Lloris was guilty of a handball on Arsenal’s second goal.
“Hugo has maintained his level of performance for a decade”
More recently, the Telegraph estimated that Jordan Pickford, the last bulwark of the Three-Lions, was “in many ways a better goalkeeper than Lloris this season”. And yet, it was Lloris who kept the Blues afloat on Saturday night, making six saves during the game. Enough to beat his own record which dated from 2010. “Hugo has maintained his level of performance for more than a decade”, rightly estimated Didier Deschamps, still at the microphone of Téléfoot.
And to add: “I think he wanted to come back to London with a victory”. A victory certainly but above all a performance of choice to disgust the English attackers and in particular Harry Kane, his club partner for eight seasons. The response to criticism is on the lawn of Al-Bayt Stadium that the most capped player in the history of the Blues delivered it.