In the relationship with his personal parish priest, the portrait of a special footballer is revealed who does not hide when it comes to confessing his Christian faith or when help is needed. In fact.
Pastor Joel Thibaut said he was the spiritual leader of several Christian footballers, through whom he met Olivier, whose mother attended a church near Grenoble as a devout Lutheran. He puts it this way: “We have mutual friends, for example a minister who met Olivier when he was young. We were introduced while I was working as a Protestant sports minister. And since I was working in England, it was only natural that we became close.” (Giraud was playing for Chelsea at the time, otherwise he won the Champions League with the London team).
IT GOES: How do you accompany the forward of the French national team in the exercise of faith?
Joel Thibaut: I am with him to help and guide him in his spiritual life. When he lived in London and his schedule didn’t allow him to go to church, I was his spiritual director.
My job was to find him a French-speaking church near Chelsea.
Now that it’s in Milan, I’ve brought it along with the Christians who attend Italian evangelical churches. I did everything I could to get him into a community of believers. An online prayer group for his London congregation is also still active.
IT GOES: How do you see the spiritual path of a footballer?
Joel Thibaut:
The greatest task for him was being able to attend a church service, sing and partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist, despite his extremely busy lifestyle.
For many athletes this can be done, but it’s not easy. When you want to vent or just share your thoughts, I’m your go-to person. Sports chaplains work for players to pray and draw strength from the Bible. I try to keep this connection in prayer with Olivier. He also had the opportunity to share his faith with other athletes through videoconferences and, thanks to these meetings, he developed a beautiful relationship, for example with the footballer Aurélien Collin, and they also took time to pray together.
IT GOES: The French national striker (Olivier Giroud) says he “places his destiny as a player in the hands of Jesus Christ”. How do you evaluate the balance between his life, which he wants to meet professional expectations, and the practice of the Christian faith?
Joel Thibaut: Despite the rapid rise of his professional career, Olivier has developed and matured. The fact that he didn’t go to church was due to the fact that his Sundays were often spent with matches. He benefited greatly from his mother’s evangelical faith, but needed someone to deepen his understanding of the Christian faith. He was able to discover a new reading of religious texts and immersed himself even more in reading the Gospels. He also worked hard on the rediscovery of the Psalms. Studied by Timothy Keller Psalms for Jesus his book, which helped him reach a sort of maturity. But he read it full of proverbs Pearls of wisdom the book too.
By the way, Olivier is an outspoken person, he was always looking for ways to strengthen his faith. When he speaks, he gives himself and what’s more he doesn’t speak.
He also took the risk of appearing in the Jesus in magazine or the More than – in your winners bible.
So he shows his faith and his values, which is quite rare in the world of football.
I believe that through Olivier’s trials he walked the path of redemption. We are talking about a person who has yet to grow up and take root with his family in a local church.
IT GOES: Who among your teammates do you share your faith with?
Joel Thibaut:
It is a very difficult environment to share your faith.
Players are not necessarily affected or affected by this. But Olivier has already been able to talk about it with Clément Lenglet, who is as religious as he is. (Clément Lenglet is currently a Tottenham player, previously played for Barcelona for 4 years and was also a member of the French national team)
By the way, Joel Thibault also spoke about Giroud’s commitment to helping persecuted Christians in 2019. Here’s how the pastor puts it: ‘What really struck me is that he promised to deliver football boots to a Muslim convert in Tunisia , and it did. I have also visited Tunisia several times to support the local church and, on behalf of Olivier, have been able to offer shoes to African migrant footballers.
Olivier was happy to offer these football boots to future players who want to pursue a career as a footballer in the Maghreb region.
Together with N’golo Kante, he is also involved in Mali”.
IT GOES: Olivier Giroud’s confession generally attracts unexpected media attention. Does it fill you with pride to be considered one of the ambassadors of the Christian religion?
Joel Thibaut: I ask readers not to idealize or idolize Olivier. He needs Jesus to find meaning in his life. His goal on this earth is not just to score goals. His purpose is to know his Creator. You should never idealize a player, because we can be disappointed by him, as we were disappointed by Zidane in the 2006 World Cup final. In contrast,
if we look to Christ, we will never be disappointed.
For Olivier, he embodies self-control, forgiveness and love for one’s neighbor. God’s love molds him and helps him every day in his inner journey. If Olivier’s trainer is “God Himself,” then perhaps we should speak more of the God of wondrous love than of his servant, humble as he may be.
French football also owes Olivier Giroud the fact that today’s most repugnant footballer disappeared from the entourage of the national team, first due to his alleged injury, then permanently. The undoubtedly great striker Karim Benzema. At least he retired from the national team.
We had a lot to do with Benzema: we can define it criminal without exaggerating. He blackmailed his teammate Valbuena with a porn video, sent photos of his own penis to a minor, sent €300,000 to a Salafist (Muslim extremist, terrorist supporter) mosque in Lyon and even had sex with a young prostitute . Benzema is one of the best footballers in the world, so he always got away with everything.
However, Olivier Giroud’s greatness caught him off guard. He had to leave the national team permanently. And Giroud scored 4 goals in the Qatar match, a total of 53, which no one has ever scored in the French national team. Benzema continues to play for Real Madrid, but has retired from the national team: it is certain that he will not have occasion to spit during the national anthem.
