Following the departure from Old Trafford of legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel in 1999, Fabien Barthez was already a World Cup winner when he joined Manchester United as his replacement in 2000. Having won the Champions League with Marseille in 1993, the France international was expected to use his experience to fill the void left by Schmeichel, but endured something of a miserable spell at the Theatre of Dreams, with a series of blunders in high profile games seeing him dropped from the side on a number of occasions before being loaned, and then sold back to Marseille. It was a disappointing end to his career at United with expectations having initially been so high following his World Cup win with France in 1998 and Euro 2000 success two years later. Barthez shares the record for the most World Cup finals clean sheets with Peter Shilton, with 10, and earned his one World Cup win when Les Bleus beat Brazil 3-0 at the Stade de France in the year France hosted the competition. His United career would not be as successful.
Joseph is an accredited football journalist and has interviewed nearly all of the current 20 Barclay's Premier League managers. He is also a correspondent for Bleacher Report and has written for Caught Offside and Give Me Football.
