Saturday will have been bittersweet for Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
On one hand, the France international is only 180 minutes away from being a double World Cup winner after last night’s quarter-final victory over England in Qatar.
On the other, his long-time friend at Spurs, Harry Kane, will be hurting in a massive way.
That’s because it was the Tottenham hitman who missed a penalty in the final quarter to make it 2-2, blazing over the crossbar.
Earlier in the second half, the 29-year-old marksman did beat his teammate in North London from 12 yards, but he couldn’t do it a second time.
Frank Leboeuf was speaking to ESPN after the game, and the legendary defender revealed that Lloris personally told him that he feels awful for his mate.
He said: “I had a chance to interview Hugo and asked him what went through his way. He said it happens sometimes [practicing penalties with Kane] and well you just pray. It’s even more difficult to guess when you receive a penalty from one of the best players in the world. He said ‘even if I can be happy that we won, I feel very sorry for him because he’s a great guy and a friend of mine’. He feels very sad for him.”
As for Lloris, well the 36-year-old is very close to becoming an all-time great of the game.
Well, anyone who plays every match in a World Cup-winning campaign could already go down as a legend, which the Tottenham keeper did in 2018.
But doing it in back-to-back editions of the competition, that’s something else entirely.
France will play Morocco in the last four of the tournament.
