Patrice Evra, France

Patrice Evra

Country: France

Club Team: Manchester United
Position: Defender

Age: 28

One of 26 siblings, Evra was born in Senegal before his diplomat father moved the family to France. A fringe prospect all his life, Evra saw his career turn around in 2000 when his manager on his second-division club, Nice, which he had joined after spending two years in Italy when he hadn't been able to land a professional contract in France, fielded the attacker as a left back as a result of a rash of injuries. Evra became one of Europe's best at his job and parlayed his new position into a transfer to Manchester United. An abundance of left backs has kept Evra from accumulating caps for France.
Scouting thumbnail: A former winger, Evra is explosive going forward, beating defenders with pace and dribbling skills. Defensively is adequate although often has trouble against pacy wingers.

On that subject, how good would you say the France team really is? Given the number of quality players available, how do you explain the UEFA EURO 2008 disappointment and the struggle to qualify for South Africa 2010?I think the EURO was a real waste. It’s frustrating because when you look at the players in the side, they all play for the world’s biggest clubs. And they’re all important players for these teams. But with France, no one player can be the star, it has to be the team as a whole, and we’re working more and more towards that goal. As far as the qualifiers are concerned, the fact we needed to qualify via the play-offs simply wasn't good enough. True, we did qualify, but we can’t be proud of it. That’s why we didn’t particularly celebrate qualification. We should have finished the job earlier and we knew that full well. We need to be fully aware of how good we are and the fact that the French team is what really matters, over and above our individual issues, throughout our preparations. Given the quality we have, we can’t afford not to have a great World Cup.
Have France’s qualifying travails and the wave of criticism received afterwards destabilised the team or helped bring you all closer together?Sides like France and Argentina, who are great footballing nations but struggled (in qualifying), will have a great tournament. I’m convinced of that. We’ve got where we are today thanks to our efforts alone, nobody helped us. We’ve gone through some tough times over the last two years, we’ve been through the mill, but that’s brought us closer together. We’ve got the fire in our bellies from now on. But we don’t play to prove the critics wrong, we play for those who love and believe in us. We’re giving it our best shot for them.