Sylvain Wiltord

Early career, Rennes and Bordeaux

Wiltord joined Rennes from lower-league side CO Joinville in 1991. At Rennes, he emerged in the 1993–94 season with eight goals in 26 games. In summer 1996, after Wiltord excelled for France at the 1996 Summer Olympics Spanish La Liga club Deportivo de La Coruña reached an agreement with Rennes for him to join from 1 July 1997. As part of the agreement a transfer fee of 300 million pesetas (€1.8 million) was paid to Rennes while Wiltord was loaned back to Rennes for the 1996–97 season. In the summer of 1997, at the end of his spell on loan, he returned to Spain only to request a move back to France so as to link up with Bordeaux. For this transfer a fee of 375 million pesetas (€2.25 million) and a 40% sell-on clause were agreed. He was ever-present in his first term at Bordeaux and went on to score 22 goals in the following 1998–99 season, where he won the golden boot as Bordeaux lifted the Ligue 1 championship.

Arsenal

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. This record fee was not surpassed until eight and a half years later when Arsenal paid £15 million for Russian winger Andrey Arshavin. Whilst with the Gunners he was occasionally paired with Thierry Henry up front or otherwise upon the wing. Wiltord made his debut as a substitute against Chelsea on 6 September 2000, and his…

Wiltord made his debut for the France national team in a 2–0 victory over England on 10 February 1999 at Wembley Stadium. For France, he was capped 92 times, scoring 26 goals. His most memorable goal for Les Bleus was scored in dramatic fashion in the last seconds of the UEFA Euro 2000 Final against Italy to tie the match 1–1 and bring the game to extra-time. France then won the final from a golden goal scored by David Trezeguet. Wiltord remained in the national squad for the 2002 World Cup, where France endured a shocking first round exit without a single win or scoring a single goal, the worst ever performance by a defending champion at the World Cup. Wiltord also took part at UEFA Euro 2004 in Portugal, having played seven games in the qualifying campaign with a return of six goals. However, a poor performance from Les Bleus saw a shocking quarter-final exit at the hands of eventual surprise winners Greece. Wiltord also was a part of Raymond Domenech's France squad that played in the 2006 FIFA World Cup final against arch-rivals Italy. Wiltord scored France's first penalty in the ensuing penalty shootout following the 1–1 draw, but France lost the shootout 5–3. Wiltord is France's 12th highest scorer with 26 goals netted for Les Bleus.

Club

International

Scores and results list France's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Wiltord goal.

Sylvain Claude Wiltord was born on 10 May 1974 in Neuilly-sur-Marne, a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, to a mother from the West Indies and a father he did not know. He was one of eight children. At the age of 14, he went to live at his 27-year-old sister's apartment where he cared for his 2-year-old niece. In 2015, Wiltord competed on the TF1 reality show Dropped, in which sportspeople were dropped by helicopter into inhospitable environments. The day after his elimination from the programme, there was a mid-air helicopter collision which killed ten, including three contestants: swimmer Camille Muffat, boxer Alexis Vastine, and sailor Florence Arthaud. He wrote on Twitter after the crash, "I'm sad for my friends, I'm trembling, I'm horrified, I have no words, I don't want to say anything."