Kante, 27, is now widely regarded as one of the best midfielders in world football after following up his fairytale season at Leicester with a similarly dominant showing at Chelsea and in the 2018 World Cup. It was Kante’s humility and hard work learned in his troubled youth that helped the miniature midfielder achieve greatness. His dad died when N’Golo was 11 so from very early on there was a sense of responsibility. He was a refuse collector and his mum was a cleaner so from very early on they told all the kids the value of working hard because that’s the only way you will achieve something.
The French giant was born on 1991 in Paris, some years later his parents left Mali. Kante grew up in a small flat in Rueil Malmaison, a small and densely populated sub-urban area close to Paris. This was an area known to have the best of people doing menial jobs for the big city. During his childhood, Kante worked helping his father as a trash picker. As a trash grabber, he would walk for kilometers around the suburbs of eastern Paris looking for all sort of valuable waste to collect and deliver to small recycling firms for quick cash.
In 1998, when France became World Cup champion beating Brazil at the Stade de France (0-3), the Chelsea footballer was doing this stuff. While his current manager in the French national squad Didier Deschamps was holding the trophy, Kante was fighting for his family in the streets. After the France 98 World Cup, the midfielder saw a different France. A France of opportunities. He saw a country whose football glory came mostly from migrants. The likes of Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane, Patrick Viera, Lilian Thuram, and Nicolas Anelka were known to be household names to migrants who grazed the tournament. Their victory brought about a turning point in terms of migrant’s participation in French football. Since that moment, N’Golo started building an awesome career.
In the 2018 World Cup, it was easy to ignore diminutive N’Golo Kante amid all of France’s star-studded World Cup squad that includes $100 million-plus players such as Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann. He has, however, “15 lungs”, according to Pogba, an incomparable work ethic and a unique ability to read the game like few others, a fact that makes him a one-man wall as beaten semi-finalists Belgium can attest after he helped neutralize their famed attacking threat. Playing in front of defenders, for much of his career Kante’s abilities had gone unnoticed given that as recently as 2013 he was playing in France’s second division.
Only when he came to Leicester City in 2015 did the world start to take notice of the player who patrols the area in front of his defense in such a way that allows both midfielders and defenders to play up. Leicester’s shocking run to the Premier League title in 2016 was as much down to Kante’s interceptions and tackles as it was to James Vardy’s goals. At the end of that season he had more tackles and interceptions than any other Premier League player. But the 1.68m-tall Frenchman was just warming up. His move to Chelsea may have surprised some at the time but by the end of the 2016/17 season there was no doubt who one of the best defensive midfielders in the world was.
“NG is always very reserved, very calm and very timid,” Pogba said once said. “Except when he is playing cards. We understand each other very well, we talk, we give each other advice. It is a very special relationship. He is just a great guy.” France won their second World Cup title on Sunday and while everyone hailed their big-name players, Pogba, Griezmann and Mbappe we know well any title would not have been possible without Kante’s tireless work in midfield. He is indeed the King of the midfield!