Frank Leboeuf

Football player infobox| playername= Frank Leboeuf
fullname = Frank Lebœuf
nickname =
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1968|1|22
cityofbirth = Bouches-du-Rhône department
countryofbirth = France
height = height|m=1.83
currentclub =
position = Defender
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1988–1991
1991–1996
1996–2001
2001–2003
2003–2005
clubs = Laval
Strasbourg
Chelsea
Olympique Marseille
Al-Sadd
caps(goals) = 069 (10)
172 (40)
144 (17)
051 0(5)
nationalyears = 1995–2002
nationalteam = France
nationalcaps(goals) = 050 0(5)

Frank Leboeuf (sometimes FranckFact|date=August 2007, or Lebœuf ["Lebœuf" is the standard French spelling, but for engineering reasons "œ" is often typed as "oe", even in French.] , born January 22, 1968 near Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône) is a former French football (soccer) defender. With the French national team, Leboeuf won the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

After starting his career in 1986 in the lower divisions of the French league, Leboeuf moved to Laval in 1988. In 1991, he moved to Strasbourg and played there until 1996, when he made a switch to English club Chelsea for £2.5m. He played over 200 games for the club and scored 24 goals, mainly from penalties and set pieces. With Chelsea, he won two FA Cups, one League Cup and one Cup Winners' Cup. He left in 2001 for his hometown club Olympique Marseille, before finishing out his career in Qatar.

A highly cultured centre back Leboeuf was noted for his long range passing ability and also for his consistent penalty-taking throughout his career. He took more than 20 penalties for Chelsea, missing just twice - against Leicester and Feyenoord. Leboeuf failed to score in a penalty shoot-out in Euro 2000.

For France, Leboeuf was capped 50 times, scoring five goals. A bench player in 1998, he stepped in for red carded Laurent Blanc to play in the final, a 3-0 win against Brazil. Although he did not get off the bench, Leboeuf did receive a winner's medal at Euro 2000. He then played at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Leboeuf now lives in Los Angeles and plays for celebrity team Hollywood United as a midfielder as he says he doesn't like chasing attackers anymore.

During his career Leboeuf made an infamous appearance on They Think It's All Over. He didn't know the answers to any of the questions, so instead he just kept saying "I don't care I won ze world cup!"

He also appeared in the 2001 film, Taking Sides. [cite web
url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0260414/
title=Taking Sides
accessdate=2008-07-12
publisher=Internet Movie Database]

Famous Quotes

"There are more stars in Qatar than in France"
"Fate is definitely with us, even if we have to pray a lot. I don't know if God is a Frenchman, but he is a good guy anyway." - Leboeuf on Spain's late penalty miss against France in Euro 2000. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/euro2000/teams/france/806736.stm]
"I have....won the World Cup"

Notes