“I was shocked by the beauty,” Frédéric Kanouté says. His first glimpse was 15 years ago but it lingers in the mind’s eye, more stunning than he had imagined, even though what he imagined was already enough to leave a city he loves and feel himself pulled in. And if this was an unusual reason to join a football club, it was proven right.
Ask Sevilla supporters for the best player in their history and many, perhaps most, will name the France-born Malian who went from London to Spain to help lead them to their first trophy in more than half a century and the most successful era they had. To think, it might not have happened without the Moorish culture and architecture of Al-Andalus.
Which is a good place to begin a conversation about football, faith, community and identity with a man who has thought deeply about them. There is a quiet authority in the way Kanouté speaks, learning and discovery in his memories. About himself, especially; about how Lyon, Bamako, London and Seville made him who he is, and the culture that took him there in the first place. “When I was at Tottenham and I heard Sevilla were interested, I thought of the club, in the Uefa Cup that year, and La Liga which I always thought would be a great experience,” he says. “But I also thought: Sevilla, Andalucía, with the great heritage it has. That played a part.
“You still found some Muslims from generations back, but not many. It was more architecture and although those monuments became tourist sites or cathedrals, they’re beautiful. That culture really, really interested me. The Giralda in Seville, which had been a mosque. I went to the minaret, the highest point, and there was this ramp inside so people could ride up by horse. I went there, I went everywhere: the mosque in Córdoba, the Alhambra in Granada. The place is special. Those were seven fantastic years.”
In the second of them, 2006-07, Sevilla won the European Super Cup, the Uefa Cup and the Copa del Rey, Kanouté scoring in all three finals. They also came agonisingly close to the title. Top for the first time in 60 years – they reached the last weekend with a chance. But having played 63 games – more than anyone – they were running on empty, real hope having slipped through their fingers. As for Kanouté, he was hurting.
“Late on you see the difference between the big, big budgets of Madrid, Barcelona and us, in many competitions with a smaller squad. I started to feel pain in my abductor and we were really tired. It was natural to drop slightly.”
Back then, it felt like a tragedy, a unique opportunity lost for a team that tore into everyone, and in fact for the game itself; more than a decade on, that suspicion confirmed, the disappointment is deeper. And yet it was the start for Sevilla and a year celebrated, not lamented. “It was amazing,” Kanouté says. “We had no complex, we were first a long time, I was banging in goals like crazy.”
He had become an idol. That season he scored 21 league goals. In total, he got 136 for Sevilla, won the Copa del Rey twice, the Uefa Cup twice, and the European and Spanish Super Cups. Not bad for a man who scored 11 in each of his seasons at West Ham, seven at Spurs, a Guardian article asking: where did it go so right for Kanouté? There’s a smile. “Footballers, we’re also a bit delusional at times,” he says. “So, I’d prefer to ask: why did it not go so well in England? I did some good stuff but I was stopped by injuries and a lack of consistency, I acknowledge that. It seems I reached my maturity around 27, 28.
“Environment plays a part. I arrived in Spain and discovered another football, another culture. The approach was different, which struck me from the first session: straight into the rondos: everything with the ball, everybody with a smile, just happy to be there. That’s the memory I have. I was lucky, I arrived at the right spot at the right time. We had a fantastic team.” Dani Alves, Jesús Navas, Luís Fabiano, to name just the players Kanouté does. (In England, incidentally, he talks about Trevor Sinclair, Robbie Keane, Paolo Di Canio and Jermain Defoe.)
Still, the goals surprised. “I’ve never defined myself as a pure goalscorer and in my academy years I wasn’t a striker: I was a winger or a central midfielder, dribbling,” Kanouté says. “I had to learn on the spot. West Ham was the beginning of me being a centre-forward. When I talk about reaching maturity at 27, maybe that’s the reason; when you think about it, I didn’t have much training as a No 9. I had to adjust my game to run less but more effectively; there was a lot I had to unlearn and relearn.”
Who did you watch? “Ronaldo Nazário was just unbelievable. At Lyon we played Inter in the Uefa Cup and he was crazy. He was doing stuff that …” There are no words, just a look that says wow. “And as a youngster I really loved George Weah. He could dribble, shoot, accelerate, do everything. He was the first African to win the Ballon d’Or, a player who beyond football made us proud.”
And that matters, Kanouté says. “To explain: I’m more a fan of Muhammad Ali than [Michael] Jordan. As athletes I respect both equally. But Ali had a fantastic impact on society, his community.”
It’s an example Kanouté embraces, considers indispensable. A conscience means contributing: football academies in Africa, buying a mosque in Seville, building a children’s village in Mali. A message of support for Palestine under his Sevilla shirt. A La Liga ambassador, he believes that if his is a voice which can be heard, it should be used; selfishness would be not to. And yet that’s worn lightly: there’s a gentleness rather than a self-righteousness to what he says and how he says it; no imposition, yet no intention of backing off.
“We’re citizens and human beings before sports people; responsibility goes beyond our field of endeavour,” Kanouté says. “What we do is a means to greater things, a platform. We have to understand that even when we talk about racism we’re privileged, not living in the real world but in the ‘footballer’ bubble. In many places, they don’t treat me as black but as ‘Kanouté’. I would realise that where they didn’t recognise me: I was seeing some shocking stuff sometimes. If we’re intelligent we understand that privilege is also responsibility. Use it well and we can do good for people without those opportunities.
Why? “Freedom,” he says, softly. “I grew up in France, surrounded by concrete. In Mali, I played with kids like we’d been best friends our whole life. All day, outside. I remember coming back literally crying, returning to this concrete world. I have good memories of that freedom.”
He pauses. “But that’s a romanticised vision. Those kids grow up with so few opportunities. When you get older you understand that’s the real freedom – education, being able to go to school. When you’re a kid you don’t realise that, I learned on the streets of Bamako, but they’re certainly not privileged.”
His journey brought him to Islam, aged 20. “For me, [faith] is everything. That might sound a little extreme but it’s the opposite: it’s as simple as life; if it doesn’t help me live, be a better person, it’s useless. That’s what’s been misunderstood and it’s hard for Muslims who live peacefully, try to improve, make a better world, to see the same cliches all the time.
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“My understanding of Islam may be different [because I converted]; my upbringing with a mixed family helps me see with more perspective, accept difference. And that’s what I liked in London: multicultural, nobody judged for being different. In France if you’re different, you can feel people’s look. I arrived in this huge cosmopolitan city and it was tremendous. I loved it. I loved it. In London, I became a man.”
But Andalucía called: his best years as a footballer, another dimension as a man. Another generation: his kids are 19, 17 and 11. “It’s crazy,” he says with a smile. “They grew up in Seville, it’s their first culture. We have a complicated household. We live in London. I speak French, they speak perfect English, my wife speaks to them in Spanish sometimes. When we ask our kids where they’re from, it’s confusing. They know they have Malian blood but they’ve only been a couple of times. They know they’re French, too. And in Seville they felt Spanish. In the end, they don’t care; it’s shared, and that’s beautiful. It’s a lesson they’re teaching us, to appreciate whatever you have and whatever you are.”
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