#6 Lilian Thuram – € 41.5
The transfer of Pavel Nedved should have been enough to convince other teams in the league that Juventus meant business at the start of the 2001/02 season. However, Juve were not done with their transfer dealings, and they recruited French World Cup winner Lilian Thuram for a gigantic sum of €41.5 million from Parma.
The Frenchman who was a rock in the heart of the French defence for over a decade, brought his defensive solidity to the heart of the Juventus defence.
Thuram capped 140 times by France, showed why he was the subject of the highest transfer fees paid for a defender then. During his short stint at Juventus, Thuram won the Serie A in 2001/02 and 2002/03. One of the few players who can be argued to have achieved more at international level than at club level, Thuram was a throwback to the 1970’s.
He won the World Cup in 1998, the European Championship in 2000 and was runner-up in the 2006 World Cup. He won the French Footballer of the year in 1997, a rarity for a defender, given the wealth of attacking talent France had at their disposal during that period.
