In the 20+ year-long playing career of William Gallas, the now retired French player has performed with a number of clubs including: Marseille, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Caen and Perth Glory.
It was with Chelsea where he managed to become more well-known as the Frenchman was able to lift the Premier League title on 2 occasions as well as a FA Community Shield and Football League Cup.
The time that he spent performing with the club at Stamford Bridge was the most prolific one for the Frenchman as this was when he lifted the biggest pieces of silverware in his playing career but William Gallas has recently revealed that he was on the verge on joining Fiorentina instead of the Premier League club.
“I turned down the chance to go to Fiorentina before I went to Chelsea. That was down to Pape. His plan for my career was for me to play for France. After Marseille, I wanted to go to Fiorentina, because it’s sunny there. You know, you’re in Marseille, you get up, it’s sunny, you’re happy to go to training and Pape was talking to me about Chelsea.’’ William Gallas said as he stated that his former agent, Pape Diouf told him to join Chelsea instead of Fiorentina.
William Gallas retired over 2 years ago and looking back at the playing career of the Frenchman, it’s obvious that joining Chelsea was the best decision as he made a number of superb performances at Stamford Bridge, his time spent as a player of Chelsea was so impressive that he was included in the Professional Footballers’ Association Team of the Year during the season of 2002-03 and 2005-06.
Even though William Gallas also performed with a few other top Premier League clubs such as: Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, Gallas could never earn as much recognition as he did with Chelsea.