‘I find a bit of myself in Sunderland’: Thomas Meunier on his new life in England, a striking past and Balogun

Not many footballers schedule interviews for eight o’clock in the morning. But then, as it soon becomes clear, not many footballers are Thomas Meunier.

Shortly after 8am, Meunier laughs as he declares himself “hyperactive”, and you begin to better understand a personal and professional trajectory that took him from delivering the mail and fixing car windscreens as a teenager in rural Belgium to signing for clubs including Borussia Dortmund, Paris Saint-Germain and now Sunderland.

We can add Meunier’s 83 games for Belgium, which have included the past three World Cups.

Meunier has strong opinions about the last of those — understandable given Belgium’s Folarin Balogun experience. We will come to them.

This man with a hinterland has committed to Wearside, moving his family close to the Stadium of Light, strolling on Sunderland’s Roker Beach and taking selfies at the local landmark, Penshaw Monument.

The latter will seem incongruous to some; Meunier will not mind that, he appreciates surrealism. While touching on Flemish painting, he mentions “Pierre Paul Rubens” on his way to Rene Magritte and the Belgian Federation’s use of surrealist art on the team’s latest World Cup jersey.

“I studied it at school, and I am still interested in art and surrealism,” Meunier says. “It’s really a Belgian thing — still now, if you look at the politics and everything. I really like the way the national team always tries to teach people: ‘What is Belgium?’”

The Penshaw Monument, between Sunderland and nearby Washington, County Durham (David Goddard via Getty Images)

Today brings something real: Meunier is 35. He will mark his birthday with another eight o’clock start, this one an 8pm kick-off as Sunderland host England’s new champions, Arsenal. Last November, also on a Saturday evening, Brian Brobbey scored an added-time equaliser for Sunderland in the corresponding fixture, a raucous 2-2 draw.

Assuming he’s selected, it will be Meunier’s third experience of Premier League. He was once the subject of Arsenal transfer speculation when Unai Emery, previously his head coach at PSG, was in situ at the Emirates Stadium. Was there contact?

“No, never,” is Meunier’s forceful — and abrupt — reply.

Otherwise he is an expansive presence, 6ft 3in (191cm) and gregarious. He could have joined Sunderland from his previous club, Lille in France, a year ago. An injury crisis at Lille interrupted the plan, he says. But after playing in his homeland, Germany, Turkey and France, Meunier is delighted to be at Sunderland.

“It’s English football, exactly what I watched when I was younger,” he says of his first impressions. “Full stadium, nice vibe, very good level, lots of intensity, everything you’re looking for. I like this organised mess, if I can call it that.

“When I think about it, I’m a bit sad not to have signed for an English club earlier. But I did it, finally. And I am really happy to have signed for Sunderland in particular, because they represent everything I like — everything I love, even — in football. This popular passion. This city, a walkable city, like where I come from. To be honest, I find a bit of myself in Sunderland.”

It’s all new. Rewind to early July and Meunier was still a Lille player, one on duty for his country at the World Cup. Belgium had just come back from two down against Senegal to win 3-2 after extra time. Victory set up a last-16 tie against co-hosts the United States.

If the Belgium squad thought the Senegal match was dramatic, it was nothing compared to what was to come.

Forty-eight hours before the meeting with the Americans, FIFA announced striker Balogun’s one-game ban for receiving a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 was to be suspended for a year. Balogun could play against Belgium.

Everyone in football knew this was a clear contradiction of the rules and a violation of the spirit of the game. They also knew of FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s sycophancy towards U.S. President Donald Trump. Political and economic interests had entered the field of play.

Thus Balogun was in the USMNT starting XI and remained on the pitch for 89 minutes. The outrage felt across the football world was shared within the Belgium squad and, highly motivated, they won 4-1.

Two months on, Meunier, who was on the bench for the 90 minutes that day, gives a brief, composed Belgian assessment of the Balogun affair and this World Cup overall.

“I do believe politics and football do not have to be partners in any way,” he begins, “but the problem is that football reflects what people think — it can be heard in the stands: racism, a lot of things. So is it really possible to divide football and politics?

“Federations are political, the financial aspect, everything is linked. It’s a bit like a government. As long as the politicians take the best decision for the people, it’s not a problem. But, if the politics are — I’m not going to say ‘corrupted’, but go against sport — then it’s dangerous.

“And that’s what we had with Balogun. The consequences of their defeat went on him, but he didn’t ask for anything. This was too much, too much on him. But after that incident, this conflict, everyone wanted us to beat America because of that situation. Everyone wanted them to be eliminated.”

Thomas Meunier made three appearances for Belgium at the summer’s World Cup (Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)

His tone is not one of anger, more dejection that Infantino’s FIFA could so arrogantly tarnish the World Cup’s reputation. And Meunier adds with downbeat realism: “I think this event was a reflection of the whole World Cup — led by capitalism, entertainment, money. This World Cup was the dark side of traditional football.

“The positive is that we have seen America is a sports country and they have the infrastructure to organise a World Cup every year. But as long as it stays about football and nothing more. The problem is that football was not the first priority at World Cup 2026.”

Belgium went on to meet Spain in the quarter-finals, losing 2-0 to the tournament’s eventual winners. Meunier returned home to receive calls from Sunderland director of football Florent Ghisolfi, and then their head coach Regis Le Bris.

“We had a call for more than an hour,” Meunier says of Le Bris. “It was the first time I had a call with the trainer explaining what he wants, asking me how I see the game, if I had watched a few Sunderland games. It was really interesting.

“Most of the time, the technical director is the one deciding — at Dortmund, Michael Zorc was deciding everything; at Paris, a bit the same. This was the first time I saw a trainer involved in the transfer process.

“I’m not a kid anymore and I think I understand football, so it was positive to have someone speaking to me like that, asking if I understand how he wants the team to play. He took the time to explain his vision. I liked that.”

Le Bris instructs Meunier from the touchline during Sunderland’s win against Fulham last month (Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

Meunier has joined a Sunderland squad who finished seventh in the Premier League last season as a promoted side, qualifying for the Europa League, bringing European football to Wearside for the first time since 1973. After Arsenal, it’s AZ of the Netherlands at the Stadium of Light next Wednesday — a landmark game — then a visit to Manchester City. This is Sunderland’s biggest week in over half a century.

For Meunier, it is the latest step in a career which started hesitantly. Born and raised in Sainte-Ode on the eastern fringe of Belgium, he joined the Standard Liege academy as a young teenager. It did not work for him — off the pitch, he could not settle into dormitory life; on it, he was not a winger. Standard stationed Meunier there and, as he says, “It’s not my game.”

Not that he saw himself as the full-back we recognise today either. Hyperactive Meunier had different ideas: “My game is to be everywhere.”

“Finally,” he says, Standard “sacked (released) me, after the second year. I felt sacked, let’s say it that way. And I was quite happy. I remember that day. It was a key moment. I was with my mum and we left the office laughing. She knew it was what I wanted. She was a bit disappointed. But she saw it was a relief. After that, at 16, I went to Virton”.

Royal Excelsior Virton were a third-division club located 30 miles (50km) south of Sainte-Ode. It was part-time football, enabling Meunier to study and work first as a postman, then in a car factory. But it was not for long.

His performances for Virton began to catch eyes. He was given a first taste of England at Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road, playing for Belgium Under-21s against England ‘C’, yet that may not be as esoteric a detail as a reason Meunier was impressing — or even the fact France midfielder and Leicester City and Chelsea old boy N’Golo Kante now owns Virton, buying them for one euro, plus debts, in June 2023.

No, half a lifetime ago, Meunier was a teenage striker. He scored a goal for Virton we can describe as borderline surreal, a ‘rabona’ finish on the run.

He smiles knowingly as old footage of his younger self reappears on a laptop screen. The goal made waves in Belgium, and it is easy to see why. “This one is crazy,” he says, laughing again. “Total improvisation, yes?”

True, replies The Athletic, and you look like a natural striker…

“I am a striker!” responds the right-back. “You know, I became a defender when I was 22? I’m not going to say I never defended before that, but I was a No 10. From a really young age, my abilities were to get the ball and create the game. I was really offensive, could play on the left or the right, as a No 9.

“But the thing is, I’m hyperactive — on and off the pitch — and if I have to stand as a No 9, for example, and just do that, it’s not possible. I need to move. Just give me the ball, and we play, play, play. And those goals you see, they went on YouTube. Technology helped me.”

A young Thomas Meunier playing for Club Brugge in 2011 (Bruno Fahy/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images)

The Virton goals and the publicity generated led to a €200,000 (£172,000; $233,000 at the current rates) move to Club Brugge, one of Belgium’s top clubs. Meunier was 19, it was 2011, and he was an attacker. He scored on his debut and recalls doing so again soon after in a hectic 5-4 defeat against Genk in which Kevin De Bruyne registered a hat-trick for the opposition.

“Yeah. It was just before his transfer to Chelsea.”

Then Club Brugge had a defensive crisis before a Europa League game and Meunier was asked if he would cover at right-back. “It was not something planned,” he says. “They said, ‘Just do a job, and we’ll see after.’ Then they didn’t change me.”

He is laughing again.

“My biggest regret is to have played a good game that day.

“I can’t really complain. When I see my curriculum vitae today, I played for Paris (PSG), the Belgian national team — this (moving to full-back) opened a door for me. It was probably the worst and best sporting decision of my life.”

In the summer of 2016, not long before his 25th birthday, Meunier left Bruges for Paris. He first encountered Emery, currently Aston Villa manager, at PSG, then played for his successor Thomas Tuchel, now England’s head coach. Meunier admires both and calls them “flexible — they wanted the team to have fun on the pitch, firstly. With respect, of course, it’s not a carnival.

“Unai was more formal. We had more tactical sessions, like 10-against-zero for 45 minutes, just moving. That kind of thing. Whereas Tuchel was more ball-minded. Every session was with the ball, even the physical sessions. It’s just different, but at the end, they wanted the same: to dominate, to counter-press, to stop the opponent functioning.”

Within a year, Meunier was a team-mate of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Angel Di Maria. He was a defined full-back but one who kept scoring. There was a game against Dijon early in his second season when he got both goals in a 2-1 win. Reminded, Meunier smiles again.

“I scored twice.”

Did he nudge Mbappe or Neymar?

“Of course not (more laughing). In training, in small-sided games, there is no real position any more. They could see. I can play as a No 9, eh? But my job at PSG was to be a sparring partner. It was my luck to be in a dominant team — 70 or 80 per cent ball possession. At that moment, I am not a right-back, I am a winger who has to defend.

“Nowadays footballers are polyvalent — Trai (Hume, his Sunderland team-mate) is playing right wing. I think everyone can play two or three positions.”

Kylian Mbappe and Neymar congratulate Thomas Meunier after his goal for PSG against Rennes in January 2018 (Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images)

After Arsenal today and AZ on Wednesday, Meunier will see Erling Haaland — the two were together at Dortmund from 2o20-22 — and, following this transfer window, Ayyoub Bouaddi, at City next Sunday. The teenage midfielder had been a team-mate at Lille the past two seasons.

“He’s just transferred for £100million,” Meunier says.

Is he worth that?

“Ayyoub is unbelievable. But, I mean, we don’t need to speak about money, because there is no logic anymore. You can buy a donkey for £200million and a very good player for £20m. There is no sense anymore. And Haaland you know. I don’t have to introduce him.”

Between Dortmund and Lille was a 2024 switch to Trabzonspor in Turkey, where Mohamed Salah has just arrived. Meunier stayed only six months, suggesting unhappiness, but that was not the case, he says. Lille triggered a contract clause to sign him.

“I know how passionate the people of Trabzon are,” he says. “It’s a small city on the Black Sea. It’s a bit in the middle of nowhere, between Istanbul and Georgia. It’s a bit like here (Sunderland) — they live for football. Sometimes it’s a bit extreme because they are so passionate.

“Very honestly, I had probably the six best months of my career in Turkey. The support, the way people are, is incredible. We had a really good team, reached the cup final, lost 3-2 to Besiktas in front of 74,000 people. This is an experience. I really loved it.”

Along the way, Meunier has collected league titles and national cups in Belgium, France and Germany and was part of the Belgium squad who came third at the 2018 World Cup. He has vast European experience, upon which Sunderland can now rely.

“I have never played without Europe,” he says. “Two games a week, I’m used to it. It was a big argument from Sunderland to convince me. We do not want to be an average team, just to stay in the Premier League — no. We were seventh last season and want to be at least the same again. The Europa League also has prestigious games.

“I don’t play only for fun, you need a reward. If I’m still, at 35 years old, at a competitive club, it’s because of the way I see football.”