Why N’Golo Kanté was one of Premier League’s greatest midfielder ever

December 22, 2025 Oliver Obel

In an era when elite footballers are as visible off the pitch as they are on it, N’Golo Kanté has always felt slightly out of step. His career has unfolded alongside social media stardom, branding empires and carefully managed personas, yet Kanté has remained stubbornly unchanged a player whose reputation has been shaped as much by small, unscripted moments as by medals.

That contrast has helped turn him into one of football’s most quietly admired figures.

Over the years, journalists and former team-mates have repeatedly returned to the same conclusion: Kanté’s defining quality is not just how much ground he covers, but how little attention he seeks while doing it.

The night that shifted the focus

One such moment surfaced after Chelsea’s 4–1 win over Cardiff City on September 15, 2018. Eden Hazard’s hat-trick dominated the football conversation that night, but the following day the focus shifted unexpectedly.

According to the BBC, Kanté missed a late Eurostar from London to Paris and instead stopped at a nearby mosque, where he met Badlur Rahman Jalil. Jalil invited him home for dinner an offer the midfielder accepted without hesitation.

“We prayed together in the mosque,” Jalil told the BBC, explaining the chance encounter. A guest later wrote on social media that Kanté was “so much more than just a good footballer.”

Why the stories keep returning

The story spread quickly, not because it was extraordinary, but because it aligned with so many similar accounts.

Former Caen team-mate Felipe Saad offered another glimpse of that same character in an interview with UOL Esporte. Saad recalled Kanté arriving at a small birthday gathering holding a box of chocolates, apologising awkwardly because he had never attended such an event before. “He’s exactly as you see him on television,” Saad said. “That’s why everyone loves him.”

Across different clubs and countries, the details change, but the conclusion rarely does.

Small beginnings, lasting habits

These stories trace back to Kanté’s early years in Rueil-Malmaison, a western suburb of Paris, where he grew up after his parents emigrated from Mali. At local amateur club JS Suresnes, his size worked against him.

Pierre Ville, one of his youth coaches, later told the BBC that Kanté was so small he could barely reach the top of a table but he arrived every day smiling and eager to work.

Football was also an escape. Kanté lost his father at the age of 11 and helped support his family while continuing to study. Unsure whether the game would ever provide a living, he pursued accountancy alongside football, a path he has mentioned in interviews with Sky Sports.

Recognition that arrived late

Professional recognition came slowly. It was not until Georges Tournay reassessed Boulogne’s reserve team that Kanté was offered a professional contract.

“I wondered what on earth he was doing in the B team,” Tournay told Le Figaro.

From there, his rise accelerated first at Caen, then at Leicester City, where his relentless ball recovery became central to the club’s improbable Premier League title in 2016.

Success without spectacle

Chelsea followed, paying around £30 million for his signature, and further honours arrived quickly: another league title and, in 2018, a World Cup with France.

Kanté played that tournament while ill and grieving the loss of his brother, a detail reported at the time but rarely mentioned by the player himself.

A reputation that outlives the headlines

Injuries later slowed his career, and in 2023 he moved to Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia. Coverage since then has focused less on his salary than on how it has been used.

According to multiple outlets, Kanté funded a $5 million hospital in Mali and launched a youth academy aimed at widening access to football and education.

For Ville, who coached him as a child, that continuity matters most. “Success in football is great,” he told the BBC, “but it is above all important to be a good person.”

Kanté’s career offers no reinvention arc, no dramatic shift in personality. Instead, it is marked by consistency on the pitch, and quietly, away from it.

Sources: BBC, UOL Esporte, Le Figaro, Sky Sports, The Athletic