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The day before, ex-Bavaria and French national team midfielder Franck Ribery celebrated his birthday. The footballer was remembered by fans not only for his impeccable play on the left flank and a huge collection of team and personal awards, but also for his unusual appearance. Sports tells about the tragedy of a 41-year-old player, whose face was disfigured with scars since childhood.
< br>Franck Ribery
- Nine-time German champion;
- < br>Winner of six German Cups and five German Super Cups;
- Winner of the UEFA Champions League in the 2012/13 season;
- Winner of the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup trophy;
- Vice world champion in 2006 as part of the French national team (16 goals in 81 matches);
- < br>In addition to Bayern, he played for the Italian Fiorentina, the Turkish Galatasaray, as well as the French clubs Marseille, Metz, Brest, Olympique Ales and Boulogne;
- Winner of the Turkish Cup with Galatasaray and the Intertoto Cup with Marseille;
- Currently included in coaching staff of the Italian Salernitana.
Adversity befell Ribery from birth. A poor area of the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer with a high crime rate and unemployment, siblings who need to be clothed and fed by parents who are barely making ends meet. But at two years old, things got even worse: while traveling around the city by car, Frank's family had a serious accident. A head-on collision with a truck miraculously did not kill anyone! However, Ribery suffered the most. The boy flew through the windshield onto the side of the road, suffering serious injuries. His face was so disfigured that in the hospital he had to have more than a hundred (!) stitches.
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“It is this scar that I owe my character and willpower. When this happens in youth, it’s always difficult… My family struggled a lot with people who called me names: “Look at his face, that’s a freak with a scar…” Everywhere I go I went, people looked at me everywhere. Not because I looked great, not because my name is Frank, not because I played football well, but because I had a scar on my face. It was hard,” said Ribery on Canal+.
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Later it turned out that the future football star was not wearing a seat belt, which is why he flew out of the car.
< br>Despite the ridicule of his peers and the sidelong glances of adults, Ribery went ahead and did not bend under adversity. On the way to his dream there was work at a construction site for his father, and expulsion from a boarding school… But the guy with the scars did not give up, turning into the same Frank who went down in the history of Bayern and world football. The “furrows” on his face no longer bothered the athlete — they even became his feature. It is no secret that the Frenchman was repeatedly offered to undergo plastic surgery and get rid of scars forever, to which Frank refused every time.
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“When I was in our area, everyone knew each other . However, when I went to school or simply met a stranger, I understood that they were looking at me, discussing me or would discuss me. I felt that even the parents of children from school were laughing at me… This is very cruel. When you are young, you really it hurts because of such cases. But even when they laughed at me, I never hid in the corners and cried. Never.» >Difficulties hardened the young man. Perhaps, without the worries about the nightmare on the road and the desire to prove to his offenders that only fools judge by appearance, the Frenchman would not have reached the heights that any aspiring football player dreams of. All possible titles with Bayern, the title of footballer of the year in France and Germany, recognition as the best player in the Champions League in 2013 and membership in countless symbolic teams… It’s a pity that Ribery never took gold with the national team. And it’s no less sad that in his best season in his career, it was not he who received the Ballon d’Or, but Cristiano Ronaldo.
To this day, Ribery, who became the third (he was ahead of Lionel Messi), considers the vote in 2013 -unfair and political.
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"It was unfair. That season was incredible for me, I should have won the Ballon d'Or. But the organizers extended the voting period, and something strange happened… I felt that it was a political decision.” (La Gazzetta dello Sport)