Fabien Barthez was one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable footballers of recent decades with success throughout his club and international career.
Nicknamed Le Divin Chauve (The Divine Bald One), due to his trademark shaved head, which was regularly kissed by defender Laurent Blanc in a pre-match ritual, Barthez enjoyed a stunning career.
Standing at just 5 ft 11 in, Barthez was relatively short for a goalkeeper but he made up for his lack of physical stature with immense agility, athleticism, decision-making, bravery, ability to read the game, and commitment when coming out to collect the ball.
He starred in France's World Cup success in 1998 and their European Championships title two years later and was still the regular as Les Bleus reached another World Cup showpiece in 2006. He won a Champions League at Marseille, two league titles at Monaco and two Premier League crowns at Manchester United, for whom he starred between 2000 and 2003.
Barthez became a hugely popular figure among the Old Trafford fanbase due to his eccentric behaviour, his taunting dribbles and step-overs past opposing strikers, and his string of incredible reaction saves. There was always a sense of vulnerability due to his lack of stature and tendency towards risk, but there was little doubt over his technical brilliance and stunning audacity.
It was that self-confidence that prompted his next career move after hanging up his boots in 2007. Within a year, of his retirement from playing football his career in motorsport had commenced, and it was not an impulse decision.
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Barthez has subsequently explained: "I have always been fascinated by motorsport, even when I was playing football. It always intrigued me. I wanted to understand what it felt like being in a car. I had to wait until the end of my pro career to try it. That said, it’s not like football: you can still be good even when you are 35, which was my age when I stopped playing."
Indeed, Barthez's passion spiked weeks after winning the World Cup in 1998 when he spoke to former French F1 driver Olivier Panis. Speaking to his former France international colleague Bixente Lizarazu on Brothers of Sport, the one-time goalkeeper recalled: "I spoke to Olivier during the summer. I asked him if I was a World Cup-winning footballer.
"It all happened so quickly. We had no time to really live in the present. I was asking myself, 'What just happened?' I'm from the generation who were told to profit from our careers because they were (over) so quickly. And when they're over, they're over. That's my message to the young: profit because it goes very quickly."
Barthez began competing at selected events in the Porsche Carrera Cup France in 2008 and two years later he picked up his first podium in race 1 at Dijon-Prenois. He went from strength to strength, winning his first race in the FFSA series at the Circuito de Navarra in race two in 2012 and ranking seventh overall in that year's championship. A year later, he was crowned French GT Champion alongside Morgan Moullin-Traffort.
In 2016, he set up the team Panis Barthez Competition with designs on racing in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race. In his first race there, he hit speeds of up to 206mph in the exhilarating race. He added when speaking to Lizarazu: "I know the course very well. The atmosphere, the spirit.
"I spent three months learning everything I could. It was a passion that turned into an obsession. It was just like football, in terms of preparing, the way the pressure mounted, you see the ground and the stadium, the pressure mounts, everything came back to me."
Now aged 51, Barthez's incredible sporting career has spanned over three decades and he has now raced at Le Mans three times – with more in his sights. Never one to shy away from thrilling fans and setting hearts racing, the Frenchman's stunning career change is not one he regrets.
