Tudor jokes with Lilian and Khephren Thuram: ‘I will slap him’ | OneFootball

New Juventus head coach Igor Tudor has jokingly threatened to ‘slap’ Khephren Thuram if he steps out of line, much like what Lilian Thuram did with his other son – Inter striker Marcus Thuram – on the San Siro pitch this time last year.

Tudor replaced Thiago Motta as Juventus head coach on Sunday, took his first full training session with the whole first-team squad on Wednesday, and gave his first press conference in front of the media on Thursday.

Tudor discussed a number of topics during his chat with the press, including where the Bianconeri need to improve, the leadership of the team, the change in football culture, while also fielding questions on a number of his first-team players.

One of them was Thuram, who was one of Motta’s summer recruits, but has not established himself as a mainstay in the Bianconeri midfield just yet.

Tudor jokingly threatens to slap Thuram

When asked for his opinion of the Frenchman, Tudor joked: “I spoke to Lilian yesterday, we had a chat. Look, if he does something wrong, I’ll slap him right away.

“No, listen, he’s well-behaved. I know Khephren from his time in Nice, I met him when I was at Marseille.”

Without context, Tudor’s joke might have sounded like a threat, but he was in fact referring to the time that Lilian Thuram playfully slapped his son Marcus for joining in with an anti-Juventus chant on the San Siro pitch in May 2024.

Lilian gave his son a seeing to when he joined in with the chant: ‘chi non salta juventino è’ – or ‘Whoever doesn’t jump is a Juventino’ – during Inter’s Scudetto celebrations on the San Siro pitch at the end of the 2023-24 season.

Tudor knows Lilian Thuram well, having spent five years together in the Juventus first team at the start of the 2000s.