On an autumn evening a little under three years ago, Marcus Thuram arrived at Italy’s most fabled stadium. A zealous steward was reluctant to let him in.
The France winger, then of the Borussia Monchengladbach team who were about to train at San Siro ahead of a Champions League fixture against Inter Milan, had mislaid his players’ pass.
So he reached for his phone, did a search on himself, and showed the steward the proof he was actually quite a well-known footballer.
He might have added to the middle-aged steward that if he didn’t recognise Marcus, he would certainly know of Marcus’s father, Lilian Thuram, who won 142 caps for France and spent his peak years playing in Italy, reliably man-marking AC Milan and Inter strikers at San Siro while in the jerseys of Parma or Juventus.