Bixente Lizarazu - The Medal Collector and Jiu-Jitsu Champion

World Cup winner x 1

European Championship winner x 1

UEFA Champions League winner x 1

Intercontinental Cup winner x 1

Bundesliga champion x 6

European jiu-jitsu champion x 1 (Blue Belt - Senior 1 Light division)

It’s not unusual for athletes to try their hand at another sport following retirement. Michael Jordan did a bit of minor league baseball, Diego Forlan is currently forging a career in Masters tennis, but the less said about Usain Bolt’s attempt to become a professional footballer, the better. For Bixente Lizarazu, jiu-jitsu was the chosen path after a glittering football career. But could he have been an even better defender had he started jiu-jitsu earlier?

In 2017, Lizarazu told FourFourTwo, “The experience I have now gained in martial arts would have really helped me as a defender in football, I’m sure, as you learn a lot about how to use the energy of the opponent to your advantage and how to position yourself to block them.”

Described in his FC Bayern hall of fame entry as ‘The Medal Collector’, Lizarazu was one of the finest full-backs of his generation, and he has the titles to show for it. He can also boast of slapping Lothar Matthaus - an early indication of his self-defenceinstincts.

Lizarazu emerged as a brilliant attacking left-back in the early 1990s, captaining a Bordeaux side that featured a young Zinedine Zidane. After leading the French club to the 1996 UEFA Cup final, famously beating the great AC Milan side en route, it was time to move on.

After an underwhelming and injury-plagued spell at Athletic Bilbao, Lizarazu found the club where his career would really take off. And, just one year after joining German giants Bayern Munich, he would become a world champion.

Lizarazu started in six of France’s seven matches as they won their first ever World Cup. In the 1998 final, the French famously defeated Brazil 3-0 in Paris, helped by two goals from Zidane. Not known for his scoring prowess, Lizarazu even managed a goal in the 4-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in the group stage.

Two years later, Lizarazu was again a key fixture in the French side that won the Euro 2000 Championship, defeating Italy in the final in Rotterdam. In 2001, at the age of 32, he added a UEFA Champions League winner’s medal to his burgeoning collection, ensuring he had arguably the three most prestigious medals in the game. In the Champions League final, Bayern Munich defeated Valencia on penalties, with Lizarazu netting from the spot in the shootout. With Bayern, he added the Intercontinental Cup to his list of honours. The German club’s victory in the final over Boca Juniors made Lizarazu the first player ever to be world and European champion for club and country at the same time.

Despite his advancing years, Alex Ferguson wanted the Frenchman to sign for Manchester United at around this time, as Lizarazu revealed to FourFourTwo in a 2017 interview. 

“I had the chance, I think in about 2001 or 2002, to go to Manchester United, but it stopped very quickly as Bayern Munich said no. Alex Ferguson was keen to sign me and United had talks with Bayern, but Bayern said there was no question that I’d be leaving.”

The full-back had a few more years left in the tank, though left Bayern for Marseille in 2004, before returning to the German side just six months later. His retirement came at the age of 36 in 2006, when he passed the baton to a young Philip Lahm.

And then it was time to find something else to do. 

Lizarazu has an all-round passion for sport. He surfs, he skis, he cycles, he swims with sharks – literally - he paddle boards, he scuba dives. His life in retirement revolves around sports. And he also developed an interest in the Brazilian self-defence martial art of jiu-jitsu.

Lizarazu may have slapped Lothar Matthaus in a training ground bust-up at Bayern but he has been keen to point out that his new sport was not really about hurting people. 

He told FourFourTwo, “Jiu-jitsu is not just about punching people. It’s very technical and an interesting martial art. I have been doing it for 10 years now and I love it - it’s very good for fitness.” 

But in the same interview, Lizarazu admits that the transition from French football and Bayern Munich legend to jiu-jitsu made him a target for his opponents when he decided to enter into competition. 

“They wanted to kill me! I took part in three tournaments, and before one of them started, one of the guys was saying, ‘We will kill you.’ But I still won the competition! I was a blue belt - it was the European Championship in my age group and the whole thing was such a crazy experience.”

Throwing opponents around on heavy duty BJJ mats would have been a far cry from making his trademark surges down the left wing, or sliding into tackles. But Lizarazu’s experience demonstrates that some elite athletes need to stay competitive and feel the need to continue to challenge themselves even after their bodies do not allow them to compete at the highest level of their first sport. 

Lizarazu is not the only high-profile footballer to take up jiu-jitsu. WolverhamptonWanderers Brazilian midfielder Joao Gomes also recognises the benefits of the martial art when he plays for his team.

Gomes told The Sun, “Learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu has improved my football. It’s helped a lot with my mobility - and flexibility. Before I tried jiu-jitsu, I don’t think I had a lot of that. I used to have a lot of pain. It has given me a lot of resistance to that pain. It’s helped with my conditioning.”

But Gomes added that it helped with the mental side of his game as well as the physical side.

“There are many factors that I think are important. It’s the ability to use the strength of your adversary against themselves that appealed to me. It’s a martial art, it’s more about using your brain than your physical strength. So there are similarities with top-level football because a lot of it is played in the brain.” 

Some Hollywood stars also swear by the Brazilian martial art. Like Lizarazu, actor Tom Hardy was also a blue belt when he entered a competition and won his level at the 2022 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship in Milton Keynes. Following his appearance at the REORG Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship, also in 2022, one of his opponents, Danny Appleby, told local media that Hardy was “a really strong guy … You wouldn’t think it with him being a celebrity.

“I’ve done about six tournaments and I’ve been on the podium in every one. But he’s probably the toughest competitor I’ve had.” 

The late celebrity chef and travel documentarian Anthony Bourdain was another famous personality to get the jiu-jitsu bug. Like Hardy, he showed up unannounced at a tournament in 2016. He won gold in his division at the 2016 New York Open Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition. Bourdain also posted anonymously to a martial-arts forum on Reddit, and some of these posts can be read in the article ‘The Lost Diary of Anthony Bourdain’ on The Rolling Stone website.

Bourdain acknowledged the tough training but the physical benefits.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu goes from strength to strength and the positive feedback from the likes of Lizarazu and Bourdain has certainly helped raise its profile.