Djibril Cissé could have ruined his first call-up to the French team. Passing through Zack Nani’s ZERL show, the former Blues striker (41 caps, 9 goals) delivered a surprising anecdote about his first call-up to the A’s. “It’s crazy how I’m learning it. One afternoon, I was taking a nap, Henri Émile (intendant of the French team) called me. I’m sleeping, it wakes me up, I answer, he says to me: ‘yes, it’s Henri Émile’, I say to him ‘yeah, yeah okay and I hung up on him. I thought it was a joke, I said to myself, I’m 20-21 years old, the guy from the France team is calling me, if it was true, he would have come through the club, it was weird The thing, I didn’t believe it at all. I go back to my nap, he calls me back, and he explains: ‘it’s really Henri Émile we want you to come to Tignes for an internship’, and bam, I hang up a second time”remembers the former Liverpool player, hilarious.
It is ultimately Guy Roux who will come to set the record straight for the former OM and AJ Auxerre striker. “I arrive in the coach’s office, he says to me: ‘Is this how I raised you? Henri Émile calls you twice and you hang up on him!’ Now I’m starting to think, I’m wondering if I haven’t screwed everything up. We call Henri-Émile back with the coach and I apologize flatly. I explain to him that for me it was a shock, and finally I go to Tignes with the group”concluded the one who would end up playing in the 2002 World Cup, a few months later.
