Now that he's retired, how people will remember him ? I personally think that despite his eccentricities and his few but rather spectacular blunders (for MU, never for France) he will be remembered as one of the very best GK of the last decade and the best of all between 1998 and 2000. What's your opinion ? Anyway, forget Bats and Lama, Barthez is by miles the greatest French GK ever.
Most successful, not sure I'd call him the best. Its also difficult to argue he was better than, say, Schmichael from 98 to 2000. His career is too full with curious behavior and odd mistakes (the DiCanio goal in the FA Cup, for example) to really judge him as "great".
I don't know, Barthez was consistentely very good for club (Monaco) and national team between 98 (and actually even before) and 2000. He's one of the main reasons Monaco won two French league titles. As for his carreer with France you'll tell me (and you'll be right) that he played with a great defense in WC98 and EC2000 but nevertheless he reached an uncredible level in those two tournaments. Now if you consider the whole decade Schmeichel is clearly the number one in terms of consistency.
Can you think of one GREAT game Barthez has played. Just one? I can't. He was a consistently good and highly idionsyncratic keeper, but I don't know if I'd call him great. I'd take Canizares over him too - before his injury Canizares was fantastic. And that's off the top of my head. VdS's form over that time (before he imploded at Juve) during that time was superb, iirc. Barthez really does have the benefit of playin in front of Thuram, Blanc, Desailly, Lizarazu and Deschamps. I don't think he was ever THAT good. But its all a matter of opinion, of course.
Well he was consistentely excellent in WC98 but I consider he was 'great' in one particular game -the 1/4 final vs Italy when he shut down Christian Vieri during the whole game before stopping Albertini's penalty. The final vs Brazil with his two great saves vs Ronaldo could also be mentioned. Now if you ask me his two best games with France were vs Ukrainia (0-0) in the Euro2000 qualifyings and vs Slovenia (0-2) in the Euro 2004 qualifyings. He was indeed truly great then, making several sublime saves vs Chevchenko in the first case. I could also mention the Confederation cup final vs Cameroon in 2003 and that's the top off my head. I don't mention his club performances but I guess he had some pretty good games with Marseille in the CL in the early 90's (especially in 1993)... As I said I only consider Barthez as one of the best of the last decade, certainly not the best. He had a lot of great moments but he was not consistent enough throughout his carreer to be considered as one of the very best ever (Yashin, Banks, Meier, Zoff, Schmeichel, maybe Buffon now...). He's a step behind.
He'll always be overshadowed by the likes of Kahn and Schmeichel in the last decade but he was successful in his own right and deserves praise in that respect.
Absolutely, I think people following the EPL might be biased because of his well known blunders at ManU. Now, to answer nicephoras. I'm not able to think about one great game by him simply because there were too many of them ! He saved our asses in so many matches for the NT on so many occasions. So there's a real divide between the way he's perceived abroad and in France. He's definitely among the greatest for this period for me, and not just because he was sitting behind a legendary defense. And I say that as someone who was behind Bernard Lama for the job ! Still, he's not perfect but who has been a perfect GK ? The thing is his risky style makes that when he does blunder, he makes them BIG. It's also true that the end of his career was not so brilliant as his diminishing physical skills may have interfered. On his choice for the WC, he made his best there and that was nearly enough yet it's likely that he did not have the level to perform a whole season in a big club or even in a top flight club. So long, take care and merci beaucoup.
Vastly inferior to the likes of Schmeichel, Kahn and Buffon - those three are the top bracket from recent years. Barthez could be spectacular, but he was far too erratice to ever be considered a "great". I would best some him up as a very good keeper who could also be either great or a poor on any given day.