Hugo Hadrien Dominique Lloris (born 26 December 1986) is a French professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for and captains Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. He is a three-time winner of the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) Ligue 1 Goalkeeper of the Year award.
Lloris began his career with hometown club OGC Nice, made his debut as a teenager in October 2005 and started in goal during the team's run to the 2006 Coupe de la Ligue Final. After excelling at the club for three seasons, Lloris moved to seven-time Ligue 1 champions Olympique Lyonnais, amid interest from several other clubs, notably Milan. Lloris won several domestic awards in his first season with Lyon and, in his second season, earned award nominations for his performances in the UEFA Champions League, which saw Lyon reach the semi-finals for the first time. He joined Tottenham in 2012, and helped the team reach the Champions League final in 2019.
Lloris was a French international having represented his nation at under-18, under-19, and under-21 level. Prior to playing at senior level, he played on the under-19 team that won the 2005 UEFA European Under-19 Championship. Lloris made his senior international debut in November 2008 in a friendly against Uruguay. He helped France qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and was applauded by the media for his performance over two legs against the Republic of Ireland in the qualifying playoffs. He captained the national team for the first time in 2010, and became first-choice captain on 28 February 2012, leading France into the quarter-finals of both UEFA Euro 2012 and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, as runners-up at UEFA Euro 2016 and the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and winning the 2018 FIFA World Cup held in Russia. He is France's most-capped player.
Early life
Lloris was born on 26 December 1986 in the Mediterranean city of Nice to an upper-class family. His French mother was a lawyer and his father is a Monte Carlo-based banker of Spanish descent.[4][5][6] He has a younger brother, Gautier, who had played for his older brother's former club OGC Nice as a central defender.[7][8] As a youth, like his international and club teammate Yoann Gourcuff, Lloris excelled at tennis and played the sport up until the age of 13. He was among the top players in his age group, ranking high in the country's national standings before opting to focus on football.[5]
Lloris studied at the Lycée Thierry Maulnier in Nice until 2004.[9]
Club career
Early career
Lloris started playing football at the age of six at CEDAC (Centre de Diffusion et d'Action Culturelle), a local cultural center based in the neighborhood of Cimiez, Nice.[10][11] The centre offered a variety of activities, which included football. Lloris played a variety of positions at the centre, such as in the attack, before switching to the goalkeeper position after coaches noticed that he possessed impressive goalkeeping qualities, such as ball-handling and catching skills.[10] Lloris excelled at the position and caught the attention of former OGC Nice goalkeeper and French international Dominique Baratelli, who recommended that the player join his former club. At the age of ten, Lloris joined Nice's youth academy.[10] He spent several years in the club's youth academy and was the starting goalkeeper for the club's under-17 team that won the 2003–04 edition of the Championnat Nationaux des 18 ans, a country-wide domestic league competition for players under the age of 18.[12]
Nice
After success with the club's under-18 team, Lloris was promoted to the club's reserve team in the Championnat de France Amateur, the fourth level of French football, for the 2004–05 season. He alternated the starting goalkeeper spot with Hilaire Munoz as he appeared in 12 matches.[13] Lloris was promoted to the first team squad ahead of the 2005–06 season and assigned the number 1 shirt. He was designated by manager Frédéric Antonetti as the team's starting goalkeeper for the club's Coupe de la Ligue campaign ahead of fan-favourite (and fellow Nice native) Damien Gregorini, who was relied more upon in league play. Lloris made his professional debut on 25 October 2005, at the age of 18, recording a clean sheet in Nice's 2–0 Coupe de la Ligue win over Châteauroux.[14] He recorded another clean sheet the following round against Sedan and helped Nice upset favorites Bordeaux and Derby de la Côte d'Azur rivals Monaco in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively, meaning the club had reached its first-ever Coupe de la Ligue final.[15][16][17] In the final, Lloris played the entire match in the club's 2–1 defeat against Nancy.[18]
Lloris made his league debut on 18 March 2006 against Nancy picking up a clean sheet in a 1–0 victory.[19] He made four more league appearances that season. The following season, Lloris was given the starting job permanently ahead of Gregorini, who subsequently departed the club for Nancy. Lloris appeared in all but one league match recording 13 clean sheets as Nice finished in 16th place. Despite the disappointing finish, the club was the fifth-best defensive team in the league with Lloris conceding only 36 goals. Only veterans Grégory Coupet, Cédric Carrasso and Ulrich Ramé conceded fewer. For the early part of the 2007–08 season, Lloris endured a recurring ligament injury in his left knee, which forced him to miss three weeks in September. He returned to the team on 6 October 2007 in a league match against Le Mans, but was substituted out after 71 minutes after the injury relapsed.[20][21] Lloris missed a further six weeks before returning on 24 November in the team's 2–1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain.[22] He appeared consistently with the team for the rest of the season as Nice finished in 8th place, the club's best finish in the league since finishing 6th in the 1988–89 season. Lloris conceded only 24 goals in his 30 appearances recording 13 clean sheets. He contributed to a defense that only conceded 30 overall during the season, tied for the league-best. Lloris' efforts that season led to him being approached by several big European clubs with hopes of signing him for the future.[citation needed]
Lyon
2008–09 season
After another solid season with Nice, speculation arose as to where Lloris would play the following season. He was primarily linked to French club Lyon, who wanted him to replace the departing Grégory Coupet, Milan, who wanted him to replace the Brazilian Dida, and Tottenham Hotspur, who wanted Lloris to replace Paul Robinson.[23][24][25] After reportedly coming to personal terms with Milan, Lloris snubbed the Italian club for seven-time Ligue 1 champions Lyon. Milan vice president Adriano Galliani later declared that an agreement had been all but reached stating that Lloris was "practically ours", but the deal reached a stumbling block when Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati refused a move to Palermo.[26][27][28] Lloris explained his decision citing Lyon's European ambitions, more playing time at Lyon, and in Milan, he was not guaranteed the starting goalkeeper spot.[29] The transfer fee was initially undisclosed, but was later discovered to be priced at €8.5 million.[30] He was promptly handed the number 1 shirt and also the starting goalkeeper position.[citation needed]
Lloris made his club debut in the team's opening league match of the 2008–09 season on 10 August 2008 against Toulouse. Lyon won the match 3–0 win giving the goalkeeper his first career clean sheet with the club.[31] In the following three matches, Lloris earned clean sheets against Lorient and regional rivals Grenoble and Saint-Étienne.[31][32][33] Despite Lyon losing out on the title for the first time in seven years, he finished the campaign conceding only 27 goals in the league and recording 16 clean sheets; both of which were second-best to only Cédric Carrasso. Lloris was, subsequently, named the league's top goalkeeper and also named to the Team of the Year.
2009–10 season
In the 2009–10 season, Lloris remained the club's first-choice goalkeeper and opened the new campaign by recording four clean sheets in the club's first eight matches. For his performances in the month of September, he was awarded the UNFP Player of the Month becoming the first goalkeeper since Steve Mandanda in August 2008 to receive the award. Lloris earned media praise for his performances against Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League. In the first match, played at Anfield, Lloris made four saves holding Liverpool to only one goal. Lyon won the match 2–1. In the second match at the Stade de Gerland, he produced stops from shots by Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt and Andriy Voronin in the first half, then displayed reflexes to deny the Brazilian Lucas midway through the second period. Though Lyon conceded late, the team drew the match 1–1 with a goal from Lisandro López in stoppage time.[34][35]
On 8 November 2009, Lloris, alongside Marseille and France's number two goalkeeper Steve Mandanda, each conceded five goals in a 5–5 draw between Lyon and Marseille, though most of the goals conceded were attributed to "slack defending" displayed by both clubs as described by the media and both managers.[36][37] On 20 December, Lloris finished third behind Nicolas Anelka and Yoann Gourcuff in voting for the France Football 2009 French Player of the Year award.[38]
Lloris remained consistent during the 2010 portion of the season conceding only two goals in the club's first four matches of the year with Lyon winning all of them and Lloris picking up two clean sheets. On 16 February, Lloris earned a clean sheet in Lyon's first leg of its UEFA Champions League knockout round match against Real Madrid. Lloris made two saves in the team's 1–0 victory making a finger-tipping save from a deflected Cristiano Ronaldo shot in the 61st minute and producing a reflex save on a shot from Gonzalo Higuaín three minutes later to keep Lyon ahead on the scoreline.[39][40] Lyon later achieved qualification to the quarterfinals in the competition after drawing 1–1 in Madrid with Lloris conceding the opening goal to Cristiano Ronaldo in the sixth minute. It was the goalkeeper's first goal conceded in over 620 minutes. On 2 May, Lloris provided the assist on the game-winning goal scored by Michel Bastos in Lyon's 1–0 win over Montpellier.[41] A week later, he was named, for the second consecutive season, the UNFP Ligue 1 Goalkeeper of the Year.[citation needed]