Fabien Barthez Was Young! And he had HAIR!

Are you sure that’s Fabien Barthez? He was quite the looker in his youth, if that is indeed him!

That’s Barthez, without question. Isn’t he adorable? You just want to eat him up with a spoon.

I mean…um… Excellent goalkeeping skills!

Barthez dated Linda Evangelista back in the day, didn’t he? If my source is correct, they almost had a baby, too, but there was a miscarriage.
Am trying to imagine what a child of theirs would look like. And failing.

Thanks, Laurie!
Well, like it or not, Fabien had the intimidation factor going for him at the height of his talent. Although without hair, his eyes were even more intense. Of course, at times, he started taking strange decisions, but it worked most of the time.
And amazing reflexes too! The biggest memory I have of him was of course, the Euro 2004 penalty he stopped from Beckham. That really changed the course of the game, and gave Zidane the oppprtunity to work his extraterrestrial magic.
He came pretty close to some of the Italian shots in WC 2006.
I’m pretty sad about how his carreer ended at Nantes.
All in all, I hope that his successor wins as many trophies as he did!

OMG! He had flowing locks, and he played brilliantly to boot! I think the video shows some of that great reflex that he had shown through his career.

[...] wrote an interesting post today on Fabien Barthez Was Young! And he had HAIR!Here’s a quick [...]

Glatisant, you’re completely correct about Linda Evangelista. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

[...] Highlights of a young Fabien Barthez, avec hair (France Blog) [...]

OMG, Fabien with hair! Looking very yummy!!

BTW, for all of Buffon’s epitomy-of-goalkeeping-perfection and all that, if you look at how both he and Barthez reacted to the penalty shootout at the wc final last year, you’ll see that Barthez was superior in guessing which way the ball was going far more than Buffon. Buffon is not a very good penalty stopper (many world class keepers aren’t). in the wc final last year, Barthez dived in the right direction for either every penalty or all but one.

Yeah and we won the Champions league with him in our cages. I hope Mandanda gives us those kinds of results

did he really guess the right direction for all the penalties bar one at the world cup finals. i dont remember as i was too drunk by then and was sure france would have won it because the bad luck the italians have at the penalties.

cybercoffee, yes Barthez dived in the right direction far more than Buffon did. I have the game on dvd and have watched it twice now since watching it live (masochist that I am) and Buffon guesses right only once.

Sandra, you are a glutton for punishment! I’ve watched the France-Brazil game a couple of times, but haven’t been able to watch the final. Yet. Maybe someday.