Wiltord training with Rennes in 2008
|
|||
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Sylvain Wiltord | ||
Date of birth | 10 May 1974 | ||
Place of birth | Neuilly-sur-Marne, France | ||
Height | 1.74 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||
Playing position | Winger | ||
Youth career | |||
Rennes | |||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
1991–1996 | Rennes | 126 | (31) |
1996–1997 | Deportivo La Coruña | 0 | (0) |
1996–1997 | → Rennes (loan) | 28 | (8) |
1997–2000 | Bordeaux | 99 | (46) |
2000–2004 | Arsenal | 104 | (32) |
2004–2007 | Lyon | 82 | (20) |
2007–2009 | Rennes | 31 | (6) |
2009 | Marseille | 13 | (1) |
2010 | Metz | 15 | (3) |
2011–2012 | Nantes | 28 | (8) |
Total | 526 | (155) | |
National team‡ | |||
1999–2006 | France | 92 | (26) |
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 14 April 2012. ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 13 April 2010 |
Sylvain Wiltord (born 10 May 1974) is a French former footballer who played as a winger.
Highlights of his club career included his four-season spell at Arsenal, with whom he won two Premier League titles and two FA Cups. He also won the Ligue 1 title at Bordeaux and in each of his three consecutive seasons at Lyon.
With the French national team, Wiltord earned 92 caps and scored 26 goals. He played at the 1996 Olympics, two FIFA World Cups and two UEFA European Championships. Wiltord was part of their teams which won Euro 2000 and reached the final of the 2006 World Cup.
Wiltord's career began at Rennes, where he emerged in 1993–94 with eight goals in 26 games. He then joined Spanish La Liga club Deportivo de La Coruña briefly in 1996, where he continued to plunder goals on loan for one season before moving back to France with Bordeaux.
He was ever-present in his first term at Bordeaux and scored 22 goals the next season, 1998–99, as Bordeaux won the Ligue 1 championship.
Wiltord was signed by English club Arsenal, for what was then a club record fee of £13 million in August 2000, weeks after scoring the stoppage-time equaliser in the Euro 2000 Final. He played 175 times for the Gunners, occasionally pairing with Thierry Henry up front or otherwise starting either from the bench or on the wing. The record fee was not surpassed for the next eight-and-a-half years until Arsenal paid £15 million for Russian winger Andrey Arshavin in January 2009.