Name: Fabien BARTHEZ
Shirt Number: 1
Position: Goalkeeper
Date of Birth: June 28, 1971
Birthplace: Lavelanet, France
Transfer Fee : £7.8 million
The son of a top-class rugby player, Fabien Barthez started
his career in professional football with Toulouse FC, playing
for them from 1989 to 1992.
He then joined Olympique Marseille, and won the European Cup at
the end of his first season, 1992/93. The acrobatic goalkeeper
won his first senior cap with France on 26 May 1994, in a 1-0
friendly win over Australia.
In 1995 Fabien joined AS Monaco, and helped them
to win the French League Championship in 1997. In the following
season, Barthez and Monaco knocked United out of the UEFA Champions
League. The sides drew 0-0 in Monte Carlo and then 1-1 at Old
Trafford to send the French side through on away goals.
In the summer of 1998, Barthez claimed the greatest
prize of all, a World Cup winners' medal. The goalkeeper was instrumental
in France's triumph on home soil, conceding only two goals in
the final tournament.
He then won a second League Championship with
AS Monaco in 1999/2000, but this was to be his last medal in France.
On 31 May 2000, United confirmed they had signed Fabien for £7.8
million, a British record fee for a goalkeeper. The previous record,
£4.5 million for Taibi, had also been set by United, nine
months previously.
Fabien was a United player when he helped France
to win the European Championships on 2 July 2000. He played in
all but one of their Euro 2000 matches, making some crucial saves.
France's 2-1 win over Italy in the final gave Fabien and his team-mates
the distinction of being World and European Champions at the same
time.
Fabien's next challenge, to win the Premiership
in England, was duly accomplished towards the end of his first
season with United, 2000/01. It was a season in which he excelled
between the posts, to easily become the most popular successor
to Peter Schmeichel.
Only five teams put more than one goal past Fabien
during his first term at United - Chelsea (Charity Shield), West
Ham, Anderlecht, Liverpool and Bayern Munich. No opposition team
scored more than two against him.
"He (Fabien) is an extra-terrestrial, and
better now than he ever was back in France," appraised Mikael
Silvestre.
Midway through the 2000/01 season, Fabien was
voted the World's Best Goalkeeper by the International Federation
of Football History & Statistics, an award previously won
by Schmeichel.
Barthez played every minute of France's disastrous
defence of the World Cup in Japan and South Korea as the French,
many pundits' tips to hold onto the trophy, crashed out at the
group stage after defeats to Senegal and Denmark and a draw against
Diego Forlan's Uruguay.
Fabien flatly refused to retire from international
football following the setback, however, despite many of his contemporaries
hanging up their boots. He's not finished yet.
