Barthez Grabbed Lang by the Neck After a Failed Panenka at Training

Fabien Barthez did not leave only good memories at Nantes. Steven Lang, a former Swiss midfielder trained at FC Nantes, recounts an altercation that occurred during training in the 2006-2007 season, when he was only 19 years old and the international goalkeeper had just been recruited.

During a weekly opposition between substitutes and starters at Stade de La Beaujoire, Lang was awarded a penalty late in the session. Encouraged by his teammates to take it, he attempted a Panenka — which went over the bar and crashed into the top netting. What happened next, he describes to RTS with striking precision: “I’m going to walk back and I realize there’s no more noise around me. It’s a cathedral silence, as if time had stopped. I just hear someone running behind me. It was Barthez, who grabbed me by the neck and tried to throw me to the ground.”

The goalkeeper allegedly told him: “I am World Cup champion and European champion, so you never do that to me again,” before insulting him. Lang draws a damning conclusion about this cohabitation: “He considered my gesture as insolence, when I was just being thoughtless. Barthez was a great professional, but not really a nice guy. He hated young players.”

Barthez’s time at Nantes had already gone wrong in other ways. Recruited in December 2006, he left the club just four months later following a violent altercation with Nantes supporters after a derby lost to Stade Rennais. “I no longer feel safe there and I prefer to leave,” he had declared at the time.

Now a player agent after his career, Steven Lang is giving this account today as Barthez is about to join the France national team staff alongside Zinedine Zidane.