The story of the versatile defender who has won over Simone Inzaghi and, as a child, used to travel 200 kilometers four times a week to train with Lille.
This is the tale of a defensive prodigy who as a kid idolized Lilian Thuram.
Benjamin Pavard has been one of the biggest fans of the legendary defender who had a great career in Serie A with Parma and Juventus between the 90′ annd 00′.
At Inter the french defender is about to become a teammate with Thuram’s son, Marcus who moved to San Siro this summer as a free agent, deciding to take on the ‘Nerazzurri’ offer in the last minute while rejecting Inter’s bitter rival AC Milan.
Benjamin Pavard‘s journey began in Jeumont, a small village of around ten thousand inhabitants in the Nord department of Hauts-de-France, just some kilometeres away from the Belgian border.
As the only child, Benjamin inherited his love for football from his father, who played as a central defender for US Mauberge in the 1980s in the French Third Division.
At the age of six, he started playing in the youth teams of US Jeumont, his local club, where he was initially deployed as a central midfielder. He was quite petite from the ages of six to nine, but then he suddenly experienced a growth spurt and was ready for a more significant adventure.
In 2006, Benjamin’s father took him to tryouts at two clubs, Lille and Lens. Both trials were successful, and it was a matter of choosing between two clubs known for nurturing young talent through their academies. The Pavard family chose Lille.
Jeumont is about a hundred kilometers away from Lille. However, this distance did not deter the Pavard family. They organized their work schedules to ensure that Benjamin could travel to Lille for training and matches four times a week, no matter the weather conditions.
By 2011, Benjamin was already a player of national interest as he participated for the Nord-Pas-de-Calais regional selection in the Coupe Nationale Under 15 held at the French national football institute.
As a professional, he continued to shine. Benjamin was gaining recognition for his skills as a central defender in Lille’s youth teams. On January 31, 2015, even before turning nineteen, he was fielded as a starter by coach René Girard in an away game against Nantes.
Although he received a yellow card and the match ended in a 1-1 draw, his performance as a central defender garnered praise from the French media.
From that day forward, he became a permanent member of the first team, and from March 15 onwards, he became a regular starter after the injury of the central defender Marco Basa.
On August 30, 2016, twenty-year-old Pavard signed a four-year contract with VfB Stuttgart. The transfer cost €5 million, a sum that made him one of the ten most expensive defensive signings in the club’s history.
Stuttgart was playing in the Zweite Bundesliga (German second division) at the time. It took just one season for Pavard to help the club regain promotion to the Bundesliga.
During his time with Stuttgart, Benjamin Pavard continued to excel. He played as a regular, filling various defensive roles due to his teammates’ injuries.
From November onwards, he was consistently deployed as a right-back, a position he would occupy for a significant period, except during injury spells.
In 2018 he won the World Cup with France as a regular starter for Deschamps side. He scored one of the most beautiful goals of the tournament in the game against Argentina in the round of 16 elimination game.
His amazing performance in the World Cup + his great performances with Stuttgart won him a transfer to Bayern Munich.
With Bayern Munich, Pavard won the UEFA Champions League and became the youngest French player to have won both the Champions League and the FIFA World Cup.
With the german side he also secured a UEFA Super Cup, a FIFA Club World Cup, and two Bundesliga titles.
Despite these successes, the desire to leave Munich became strong for him this summer.
He has a very close relationship with Olivier Giroud, who will now be his direct opponent in the derby della ‘Madonin’, and Benjamin may even have to directly mark him.
Among his love affairs, one of the more publicized ones linked him with Rachel Legrain-Trapani from February 2018 to February 2019, who held the title of Miss France 2007. Currently, tabloids describe him as “single.”
