Black History Month

Desailly: I looked far for my black sporting heroes

17 Oct 2023

Ex-Chelsea star discusses his role models and the multicultural France team who won the 1998 World Cup

When Marcel Desailly sought black role models in French football when growing up in France, he had to look beyond his own country.

See: Desailly reflects on his career

"In the 1970s, not in football, but I had some in Edwin Moses, Marvin Hagler, Americans especially," Desailly told Sky Sports.

"I met [Hagler] when he was in Italy in Milan, he was my friend. He was scary, but he's not that tall. I saw the boxing training sessions; this is where you understand real sports commitment and I was like, 'Wow!'"

Only one France player in the 1970s was really an inspiration to the former Chelsea defender, with most coming from abroad.

“The top, top, top, Marius Tresor maybe, but not that many,” Desailly adds of the player born in Guadeloupe but who represented France 65 times.

“Like everyone, Michael Jordan was a hero. But in football it was Diego Maradona, Bernd Schuster, who played for Barcelona.”

Desailly lifted the FIFA World Cup in 1998 as part of a multicultural France team led by Didier Deschamps, who joined Desailly at Chelsea in 1999, and featuring Zinedine Zidane and Lilian Thuram, along with former Premier League stars Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Fabien Barthez.

"We share our knowledge and history but it is not really something [we talked about]," said Desailly.

"Each of us had a story, probably this one (winning the World Cup) also brought us to the level we were supposed to be, but it's not something that we noticed.

"Yes, Zidane is originally Algerian but we never talked about it.

"It was something proud, to make sure the population identified themselves to the French national team. Being able, all together at the same time, from different origins, to make France proud."