Ex-Man Utd star swapped football for motor racing and even drove in Le Mans

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Fabien Barthez won it all as a footballer in the 1990s and early-2000s.

The goalkeeper lifted the 1998 World Cup with France, after which team-mate Laurent Blanc famously planted a kiss on his iconic bald head. He had already won the Champions League with Marseille and Euro 2000 just months before his arrival in England.

But it was his two Premier League-winning seasons with Manchester United in 2000/01 and 2002/03 that English fans will no doubt remember the most.

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As a goalkeeper, Barthez loved nothing more than to taunt attackers with mind games, stepovers and hilarious penalty antics. The eccentric shot-stopper – dubbed Le Divin Chauve (The Divide Bald One) – was as much a liability as he was remarkable.

But just one year after hanging up his gloves at Nantes in 2007, a then 36-year-old Barthez opted to switch sports altogether. To the surprise of many, he decided to try his luck as a professional racing driver.

Barthez competed in the Porsche Carrera Cup France in 2008, before entering the French GT Championship the following year. That came alongside appearances in the Bioracing Series and the Caterham Sigma Cup France.

What is your favourite Fabien Barthez memory? Let us know in the comments section below

In 2010, Barthez achieved his first podium finish at the FFSA GT Championship in race one at Dijon-Prenois. And he would win his first race in the FFSA Series in race two at the Circuito de Navarra a year later.

But ever the risk taker, the former Les Bleus hero chose to push himself even further by taking on the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 2014. He finished a respectable 29th overall and ninth in the LMGTE Am class driving Team Sofrev ASP's Ferrari 458 for the gruelling endurance race.

And he later revealed the bold transition from footballer to high speed racing was something that had always been on the cards.

Barthez said after the fascinating escapade: "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."

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• Manchester United FC
• Premier League
• Marseille FC
• Motorsport
• World Cup

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