Player profile: Fabien Barthez

Will the famous bald head be between the posts for France on June 13th against the Swiss? Well he started the last friendly against Slovakia but the fans seem to want Gregory Coupet so it will be interesting to see which way Raymond Domenech goes.

Barthez has pretty much been number one for the past decade up until he received an eight month ban for spitting at a Moroccan referee while playing for Marseille. Maybe that’s just another part of his ‘wacky’ personality, there was a picture not too long ago of him standing at the edge of his penalty area during a game taking a piss.

There’s no doubt he can either be brillant or a liability. When France won the World Cup in 1998 he only conceded two goals in seven games but he’s also made some real howlers, some of the ones at club level for Manchester United really spring to mind, but a series of French managers have all ended up picking him and I ‘m sure Domenech will do the same.

Barthez tries to fake out Paolo Di Canio who scores easily

Looking at his record down the years you can’t argue he’s not a winner. World and European champion with France, European Cup and French league winner with Marseille(*), two French titles with Monaco, two Premierships with Man. United, its an impressive collection and for a while he was even going home to find the beautiful Linda Evangelista in his bed, not bad work.

Like Laurent Blanc, Linda loved kissing the bald, shiny head