Hugo Lloris has lived in the intense pressure cooker of international football and the Premier League for so long that there is a sense of lightness and even relief when he describes how the day started for him in Los Angeles. “I woke up this morning and had breakfast with my kids,” he says with a grin as he continues chatting happily at home. “I then took them to school and the weather is clearly beautiful. Just before our interview I went for a walk and I was still wearing shorts and a T-shirt… in November.”
Lloris laughs slightly in disbelief. We speak on Monday, the day before America goes to the polls, and the 37-year-old goalkeeper says: “Tomorrow is the big day and what’s really surprising when I walk around the neighborhood is that people aren’t afraid to show who they vote for. You see the signs outside their homes. In Europe we are more private.”
California’s sunshine and hope have faded after the election. Donald Trump won only 40.1% of the vote the vote in California compared to Kamala Harris’s 57.3%, but most of America gave him a resounding national victory. Lloris gives a very Gallic shrug when we talk about the bizarre and persistent popularity of the returning president: ‘I know, but America is a huge country. I feel it when we play away. There are so many different mentalities, different expectations.”
Life goes on and Lloris can now enjoy the fact that his new club, Los Angeles FC, topped the Western Conference at the end of the MLS regular season. Inter Miami were Eastern Conference champions with an aging, star-studded squad led by Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Sergio Busquets. For Lloris, this brings back memories of the 2022 World Cup final when he and Messi captained France and Argentina respectively in one of football’s most exciting matches.
Argentina won 3-3 on penalties after a tumultuous draw in his new bookLloris describes his persistent pain: “I met people on the street who thanked me for the beauty and emotional intensity of this final, and assured me that it was the most beautiful match they had experienced in their entire lives. Maybe when I’m old I can see it that way. But not yet: it was a disaster because we lost, because we were worthless for 80 minutes. And so the pain was unbearable.”
Lloris has won a record 145 caps for France and has led his country to consecutive World Cup finals, winning the first in Russia in 2018. He also captained France when they lost the Euro 2016 final and played for Spurs in their Champions League 2019 League Final loss. Lloris thus understood the clear distinction between winning and losing and was dismayed by the behavior of Spurs chairman Daniel Levy four days before the match against Liverpool.
Levy presented each player with a luxury watch and on the back he had the words ‘Champions League Finalist 2019’ engraved. Lloris was surprised. “Who would do something like this at a time like this?” he writes scathingly. “I’m still not over it, and I’m not alone. If we had won, he wouldn’t have asked for the watches and had ‘Winner’ engraved instead.”
Lloris’s disdain has softened somewhat. “It was a very nice gesture from Daniel, but it was obviously a bit strange,” he says. “You get a very nice gift, but at the same time this small detail shows that you are not used to being in such a place.”
Did he ever ask Levy to explain his thinking, which suggested that just playing in a Champions League final, rather than winning it, was worth such a showy celebration? “No, no, no,” says Lloris. “You don’t want to embarrass people. But the general feeling among the players is: ‘Why? What is this? We haven’t started the game yet.’”
Lloris is also a diplomat and he adds: “I have a lot of respect for Daniel. I think he has done a fantastic job for the club. When I look at where Spurs were when I arrived, [in 2012] and when I left [this January]It’s a different club.”
There have been seven consistent and contrasting managers in that period – André Villas-Boas, Tim Sherwood, Mauricio Pochettino, José Mourinho, Nuno Espírito Santo, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou – and yet the club has still been without a trophy since the 2008 competition won. Cup. Lloris makes it clear he considers Pochettino’s sacking a mistake, while he was also stunned by the “incredible timing” of Mourinho’s sacking six days before the 2021 Carabao Cup final. He acknowledges there were problems on the pitch and in the dressing room with Mourinho, but is still surprised that the club fired a manager they hired for his silverware expertise and replaced him with Ryan Mason as an informal caregiver.
Lloris believes Spurs’ impressive rise under Pochettino, the manager he has always been closest to, needed support after the 2019 Champions League final. The club was in a position to increase their progress, but Levy opted to wait and instead invited the Amazon cameras and quickly omitted Pochettino. Lloris recalls his disdain for the Amazon documentary and his disbelief when Pochettino told him he had been fired.
He is now more forgiving of Levy – which is easier because he and Pochettino, the new US head coach, are both happy in America. “If you look at the last three years, Spurs have been very active in the transfer market, investing a lot in new players and in freshness, and that is what the club needed to create a new dynamic. After the Champions League final, the club was not prepared to invest because the new stadium also had to be repaid and then there was Covid.
“Daniel always tried to make the right decision for the club and we were also a bit unlucky. At our best, Mauricio had us competing with Abramovich’s Chelsea, Guardiola’s Man City, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool. It was very difficult because if the club was willing to invest £50 million, the others will invest £100 million.
“But I feel like we haven’t given Mauricio the credit he deserved because he took a new generation of players – Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli, Harry Kane and many more – to a new level. He has created something very special in the building. You felt the unity and we really enjoyed fighting for each other. We took the club to the next step, but we had three finals and in those games we couldn’t score a goal.”
Even though his final year at the club was marred by injuries and discontent, and he never played for Postecoglou, Lloris still follows Spurs closely today. “I really like what I see and I believe they are going in the right direction. They have a good football style and mentality, I think [Postecoglou] brought exactly what the club needed at the moment: freshness and a new fan expectation. That’s probably why I felt so heavy when we were with José or Antonio. It was a different style of football.
“As long as you keep winning, there is no problem. But as soon as you start losing one or two games, the fans get even more frustrated and you feel that in the stadium. [under Mourinho and Conte]. Ange has a great personality and I think he is building something important. Everything can change overnight, but I think this team has the character and personality to continue to grow. I think they will compete for trophies this season, such as a League Cup.”
In his book, Lloris offers fascinating insights into playing football under the brooding Conte – who sounds as ferociously intense and ultimately alienating as you could imagine – and Mourinho, whom he describes as far more sympathetic than his current reputation suggests. ‘Yes, he’s a great man. If you’re open to improving and learning, it’s great to have him by your side. The only question everyone asks is that when the club decided to split with Mauricio, we had a good style of football. The club decided to change to try to win [by appointing Mourinho]. All the comments about Mauricio were the same: ‘Oh yes, his team plays great football, but they never won.’ So it’s clear that Daniel and the board have decided that they need to bring someone who can help the club win. You can’t fault that – even though I found Mauricio’s departure very difficult.”
The Spurs soap opera continues as Lloris insists in the less frenzied world of MLS that the standard of football in the US is higher than many expect. “I was talking about it a few days ago with Olivier Giroud [his LAFC team-mate] and if you come to the MLS and think, ‘Okay, I can put my feet up and relax,’ you’re dead wrong. It’s more competitive than people think. Obviously you can’t compare it to the Premier League, but it is still competitive and very challenging, especially outdoors with long journeys, weather changes and elevation changes.”
As usual, Lloris negotiated his current deal without an agent. It is a sign of his individuality that he never appointed an agent. “But I enjoy listening and spending time with them because the best agents are professional and experienced and I respect their work,” he says. “They make the market. But I still believe that a normal person has expectations in terms of grades when applying for a new job. So I have, but I took a lot of advice and I had a lot of lawyers. I work more with lawyers than with agents.”
Does he know many footballers who work without an agent? “Nowadays there are not many. But when Kevin De Bruyne signed his last contract with City, I think he did it on his own merit. He simply took all his data and compared it to the same player profile and that’s how he justified his numbers. That’s quite interesting. I’m the same. I am very close to all my business affairs. It’s how I grew up and something my father passed on to me.”
Lloris explains that with LAFC he has “a one-year contract with an option for a further two years. I want to go year after year because I don’t know if I’m mentally ready to go again. But surprisingly, I feel very good. In recent years I have become a bit tired because the Premier League is very intense and demanding and there is a lot of pressure when you wear the France jersey and are national captain. [from 2012 to 2022]. I could have stayed in Europe, but I made the right choice by coming here. I really needed something new and fresh.”
Hugo Lloris: Earning my spurs is published by Quercus. Available from Guardianbookshop.com.