Frank Leboeuf on Raphael Varane’s retirement & Juls’ list of French center backs | ESPN FC

Varane with all his UCLs, La Ligas, World Cup, finals of Euro and WC… not on this list? I admit i dont know some of those older players tho, but i cant imagine they all won more than Varane, or have been more important to the teams they played in, than Varane

Where’s Lilian Thuram?

Frank the bull was fantastic this show

For me the top 5 has to have Desailly and Thuram. After-all France won WC 98 and Euro 2000 and those victories were built off the foundation of having the greatest defense in international football at the time. France was even better defensively than Italy who had Maldini, Cannavaro and Nesta. So that should tell people just how good their defenders were.

In WC 98 France kept 5 clean sheets and conceded only 2 goals the entire tournament. During the knockout stages their strikers managed ZERO goals. Blanc scored the winner in a 1-0 win in the rd of 16 against Paraguay. In the quarterfinals against Italy it finished 0-0 and they won on penalties. In the semis against Croatia it finished 2-1 for France with Thuram (a rb/cb) scoring both goals. And in the final against Brazil they kept another clean sheet and won 3-0 with Brazil barely getting a sniff. That defense literally carried them to victory. As mentioned, the forwards managed ZERO goals in the knockouts and Zidane was average that tournament. He only came alive in the final where he scored his only 2 goals that tournament and he was decent in a couple of group stage games early on. Other than that he was below par and even received a red card and missed one of the games. So if the defense didn't hold the fort down they would have been knocked out. 2 years later the same defense also went on to win Euro 2000.

Aside from that Desailly won the UCL with both Marseille and Milan. And Thuram was constantly rated as a top 5 defender in prime Serie A when other defenders like Maldini, Nesta, Cannavaro, Walter Samuel, Aldair, Cafu, etc were all playing in the league. To stand among that crowd speaks for itself. Yes Varane won a lot, and he should definitely be top 10. But top 5 is a stretch imo. Let alone #1. He was never the driving force on any of those teams. Let be honest…RM won those UCLs because they had prime Ronaldo, a generational midfield of Modric, Kroos and Casemiro and proven leaders and winners like Pepe and Sergio Ramos. Varane played a role and was still elite. But putting him as the #1 French CB is disrespect to some of the others.

LaBeouf maybe doesn't make it on a top 5 list but he's definitely on the list for best French defenders. Don't know what number but he's on the list. And for me Laurent Blanc is probably my favorite French defender. Not only could he defend but he had a bit of a Beckenbauer to him in that he would get up the pitch and put in some goals. His goal against Paragauy in 98 is a perfect example of this. Thuram, although he played on the right early on for France, also has a place in best French defenders.

Not having Varane in the top 5 is a disaster . His club + country career is unparalleled . To all the people saying its a team sport, he wasn't that important to the teams he played are just plain stupid . Attack wins you games but defense wins you tournaments . He has performed on the biggest of stages most often than others . He has to be right up there

Juls gives nothing new in his analysis, some bla bla bla stuff that everybody knows. He is more like a tabloid journalist than a pundit.

Should have stayed till the 2026 world cup , who knows maybe gotten 7 penalties and won the world cup a second time ,1 more than the supposed goat

As a Utd fans, Im respect what he want to focus on his club but as a Frrance supporter I'm feel sad not to see him played for France again.

How come Varane and Blanc shouldn't be in the list when they were World Champions and won so much.

Frank is the king of humility! 😂😂

It has nothing to do with what Varane won with club and country, it's more the skills and ability he has, and to be fair, he is nothing special, can't tackle or does anything defensively extraordinarily.

Also football today has almost no world class players anymore, there are no defenders like Desailly, Maldini, Nesta, Lucio, Samuel, Vidic, Terry, Puyol …..

Whenever Varane plays as Centerback in any team it looks stable and the only period he looked so bad was when he played alongside Harry Maguire!!!!

Africans are not French

Consisering the plethora of centrebacks france have, and the fact that hes already won a world cup, it makes sense 100%. Hes injury prone and should reduce his overall # of games played in the future. He couldve waited till after the euros but after being in 2 finals, who really cares lol. Itll only extend his career. Hes already a france legend, its all good!!!! Varanes a beast!!!!

Varane is a top defender but hes not top 5 all time for France. In Fifa Varane is the greatest defender of all times.

God I love Frank!

Lets not forget than Frank played in the final of the 1998 World Cup ONLY because Laurent Blanc got red carded vs Croatia (terrible fakery dive from Bilic, shamelessly pretending that Blanc had hit him in the face!…poor Laurent Blanc deprived from the biggest game of a career … wish VAR existed then…!)