Every player has a dream that someday he would be given a chance to lead the side after retirement but not everyone has the gut to take on that pressure and there are many who start talking about the same to their favorite players who are still playing.
Former Chelsea star Frank Leboeuf is one such mentor who wants this happens to N’Golo Kante but says he is too shy to be “a boss” of the Blues squad. If we look at the performance of the France international he has featured in all but one of Chelsea’s Premier League matches this season, that makes him one of manager Antonio Conte‘s key players, yet he misses the quality of dressing room leader. Talking about his babay, Leboeuf, who won the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 with France, said, Is he a ‘boss’ at heart? I don’t think so. He’s an extraordinary soldier, a warrior, but he doesn’t have the personality nor the stature of a leader.
“At Chelsea, in the middle of the stars, he’s the indispensable man and Conte counts on him, but he never makes him the boss. He doesn’t have the game of a boss. He’s not a Zizou. This boy is indispensable to Chelsea, but he’s not the boss, because he doesn’t speak easily, he’s shy, he doesn’t have the stature. Even technically he’s not a leader in the team’s play. He’s a guy who’ll win back 800,000 balls a game.”
Talking about another incident, Leboeuf said the former Caen man’s renowned niceness may put a negative effect on him when his selection is weighed against that of more high-profile players, such as Manchester United’s Paul Pogba.
“With Kante on the bench, you don’t have a problem. With Pogba on the bench, you perhaps have a problem. But Didier does what he wants. There’s only one person who decides. There is a phrase that sums up Kante exactly: ‘Kante is the motor, but not the pilot.’
He can be the motor of the team without being the leader, because he still doesn’t have the stature and his play doesn’t mean he can be a boss or technical leader.”