When Celtic and Middlesbrough competed to sign Olivier Giroud | OneFootball

At 39, Olivier Giroud has experienced it all. A World Cup winner, France’s all-time top-scorer has played in France, Italy, England, and the USA. However, as he tells L’Équipe, it all could have been a lot different.

Giroud came through the ranks at Grenoble Foot before going on to join Tours FC. Having impressed for the latter, the striker then began attracting significant interest back in the summer of 2010. It wasn’t just French clubs that were in for Giroud, but also clubs across the Channel, as he has now revealed.

“When I was the top scorer at Tours in Ligue 2 in 2010, and there were Ligue 1 clubs after me, there was also Celtic and Middlesbrough who were offering two or three times more,” revealed the Frenchman, who now plays for Lille OSC.

However, he didn’t choose money; instead, he opted to join Montpellier HSC. There, he would win the Ligue 1 title in one of the greatest shocks in French football in the 21st century. That proved a springboard for Giroud, who then went to Arsenal, before going on to play for Chelsea, AC Milan, and LAFC.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle