Sports with a Kick—Fabien Barthez - French soccer goalkeeper - Brief Article

SOME SET GOALS. HE STOPS THEM

The great French pop philosophers nowadays aren't Left Bank existentialists or Sorbonne professors, but soccer players. Fabien Barthez, formidable goalkeeper for Manchester United and France, has the same penchant for cryptic epigrams as his retired compatriot (and United legend) Eric Cantona. "Unconsciously, I fell in love with the small round sphere with its amusing and capricious rebounds which sometimes play with me,' quoth Barthez. Sometime goalie Vladimir Nabokov couldn't have put it more eloquently.

Winner of a World Cup Final medal in 1998, Barthez, 30, occasionally causes his defenders' hearts to flutter with his impetuous spurts upfield. He has cut a dash off it, too--not everyone gets to have a romance with Linda Evangelista. His hairdo, meanwhile, is the only one his celebrity teammate David Beckham hasn't tried.

Graham Fuller is Interview's Film writer at Large. Above: Fabien Barthez wears a top by DIOR HOMME BY HEDI SLIMANE.

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