Jérôme Rothen

Jérôme Rothen

Personal information
Full name	Jérôme Rothen
Height	18.88 m (61 ft 11+1⁄2 in)
Position(s)	Midfielder
Team information
Current team	Rangers (on loan from Paris Saint-Germain)
Number	TBA
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 1 September, 2009

Jérôme Rothen (born March 31, 1978 in Châtenay-Malabry, Paris) is a French footballer, who plays as a left winger for Rangers on loan from Paris Saint-Germain. Rothen has won 13 caps for the French national team and he competed at the Euro 2004 tournament. He is a highly skilled winger who specialises in free kicks, crossing and passing.

Club career

Early career

Rothen underwent training at the famous Clairefontaine National Football Academy in France.

SM Caen

He started his career with SM Caen.

Troyes

He then played for Troyes AC under Alain Perrin.

AS Monaco

He was brought to AS Monaco on 1 January 2002 for €5 million. Rothen was one of the stars of the Monaco side that reached the 2004 final of the Champions League, in May 2004.

Paris Saint-Germain

A native of Paris, he fulfilled a childhood dream when he signed for the capital side Paris Saint-Germain in 2004 for €11 million.

Rangers

On 1 September 2009 Rothen joined Rangers on a one-year loan deal.

International career

Rothen made his debut on 29 March 2003 against Malta

He was a member of the French national squad at Euro 2004, where he made a brief substitute appearance in their defeat by Greece in the quarter-finals. Rothen's loss of form since moving from Monaco to PSG meant he was not considered for a place in France's 2006 FIFA World Cup squad. He was recalled to the squad for Euro 2008 qualifying and, on October 10 2007, marked his comeback with a superbly taken free-kick against the Faroe Islands.

International goals

Scores and results list France's goal tally first

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	13 October 2007	Tórshavn, Faroe Islands	Faroe Islands	4–0	6–0	UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying

Autobiography

On October 8, 2008, Jérôme Rothen published his autobiography You're Not Going To Believe Me. The book has generated significant attention in the media, notably for its description of an incident concerning Zinédine Zidane, his former teammate in the France national team.

According to Rothen, the incident occurred during the second leg of Monaco's 2004 Champions League quarter-final win over Real Madrid. Monaco had overturned a 4-2 first leg deficit, and were 3-1 up with seconds left to play when Zidane tackled Rothen from behind. "It was a foul and I went down, admittedly I made a bit more of it, but anyone would have done the same, as we were trying to buy some seconds," Rothen wrote. "Zidane leant over me and said: 'Get up, you son of a bitch.'"

The expression Rothen claims Zidane used, 'fils de pute', is a variation on what Marco Materazzi is alleged to have said to Zidane before the head-butt that proved the iconic moment of the 2006 World Cup final. "I was surprised but put it down to his frustration, and I expected him to apologise at the end of the game, but he said nothing," Rothen continued. "I thought the next time we saw each other with the France team he would say sorry, and then it would be forgotten, but he didn't and that disappointed me."

In a subsequent interview with the French newspaper L'Equipe, Rothen stated he did not intend to smear Zidane's image by publicizing the incident. He also denies having received pressure from the latter's camp to remove the offending passage, as had been reported in the press.

It was also in this book that Rothen outed himself, one of the very few professional footballers to ever do so whilst still playing.

Honours

Paris Saint-Germain

• Template:Sport honours
• Template:Sport honours

• 2003 Coupe de la Ligue (with AS Monaco)
• 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup (with France)

External links

• Template:Fr icon FFF profile
• Template:Fr icon PSG profile
• Jérôme Rothen – French league stats at LFP – also available in French (archived)