Before emerging in Ligue 2 then in Ligue 1, Olivier Giroud did not establish himself in his training club, Grenoble, forced to sign for a small National club in order to become a true professional footballer.
Unlike most of the star players of the France team, Olivier Giroud does not come from a major training center. Golazo, the Sports.fr and French Football Weekly podcast, looks back on the atypical start to the career of the top scorer in the history of the Blues, who celebrates his 37th birthday this September 30.
In agreement with his parents and especially his big brother (Romain, who went through the AJ Auxerre center), Giroud did his training near the family home, in Grenoble. At GF38, he signed pro and shone in the reserve team, before discovering Ligue 2 without ever really having his chance. Solicited by FC Istres, a club with little or no money, the Isérois was loaned for a season and it was this stint in the Marseille region that transformed him, as a young player and an adult. He was 20 years old.
Giroud will have had a late takeoff, since, after being sent by Mecha Bazdarevic on his return to Grenoble, he exploded at Tours FC, a Ligue 2 club which bought him for 150,000 euros, compensation paid in two installments. Montpellier was already following him with Istres and brought him in in 2010 for 3 million euros. The man who then became a reference in the Premier League started in Ligue 1 at the age of… 23!
