Story · France
Jamie Vardy Reveals N'Golo Kanté Initially Wanted to Represent Mali Over France
English striker Jamie Vardy, former teammate of N'Golo Kanté at Leicester City, revealed on a podcast that the French World Cup-winning midfielder initially wanted to represent Mali internationally to honor his father's roots. Vardy said he and other teammates convinced Kanté he would win the World Cup with France, which proved prophetic as Kanté became a key figure in France's 2018 World Cup victory. The 35-year-old midfielder has 69 caps and two goals for France, also finishing runner-up at Euro 2016 and winning the Nations League in 2021. Vardy also shared an anecdote about Kanté giving his Mini Cooper to his parents in their village and buying another after teammates mocked him.
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