Fabien Barthez

Fabien Barthez is a retired footballer, a goalkeeper. He was born in 1971 and began his professional career at Toulouse. His debut for them came on 21 September 1991 in the match against Nancy. In 1992 Barthez moved to Marseille and the team was relegated to Ligue 2 because of the match fixing. Nevertheless the goalkeeper didn’t leave the club in 1994/95.

Between 1995 and 2000 he played for Monaco and in 1997 and 2000 he helped them to claim Ligue 1 titles. In 2000 Barthez signed a £7.8 million deal with Manchester United. Since the very start of his spell he proved himself an effective keeper but the first half of the 2001/02 season was a failure and he faced a lot of criticism. In the second half of that season his performances improved. The 2002/03 season was of mixed success and in January 2004 Barthez was loaned to Marseille and at the end of the season his move was made permanent. He played for Marseille until the autumn of 2006 and then retired, but his retirement wasn’t final as between December 2006 and April 2007 he played for FC Nantes.

Fabien Barthez earned 87 caps for the France national team. In 1998 he was a part of the team winning FIFA World Cup, in 2006 they were runners-up. In 2000 France UEFA European Championship and in 2003 they claimed FIFA Confederations Cup title.

After retirement from football Barthez went into motorsport.