Sylvain Wiltord

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.

Early career, Rennes and Bordeaux

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.

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. 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.

The highlight of Wiltord's Arsenal career was scoring the winning goal over Manchester United at Old Trafford, a 1–0 win which clinched the 2001–02 Premier League title as Arsenal achieved The Double on 8 May. He scored a total of 49 goals for the club, and was part of Arsenal's 2003–04 "Invincibles" season, though he did not feature much towards the end of the campaign and near the end of his Arsenal career. His final season brought 12 league appearances, enough to qualify for a title winners' medal.

In June 2008, Wiltord was voted 33rd in a list of 50 of the greatest Arsenal players of all time.

Lyon

When his contract with Arsenal expired in the summer of 2004, Wiltord trained for two weeks with Rennes and rejected a move to newly promoted Premier League team West Bromwich Albion. On 31 August, he signed for Lyon on an initial two-year contract. Moving to Lyon, Wiltord found further success, winning three Ligue 1 titles and reaching the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League in successive seasons.

Rennes

Wiltord signed for Rennes in August 2007 on a two-year contract and with an opportunity to join the coaching staff when he finished his professional career.

Marseille

He joined Marseille on 15 January 2009 for the remainder of the Ligue 1 season. On 17 May 2009, he scored Marseille's only goal in a 3–1 loss to Lyon at home. He was released at the end of the 2008–09 season, and was considering a possible move to either America, UAE or perhaps retirement.

Metz

On 30 January 2010, Wiltord signed with Metz until the end of the season.

Nantes

On 18 July 2011, Wiltord came back from retirement and signed a contract at Nantes until the end of 2011–12. He announced his immediate retirement on 11 June 2012.

Wiltord made his debut for France in a 2–0 victory over England on 10 February 1999 at Wembley Stadium. For France, Wiltord has been 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 fantastic 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.

Most recently, Wiltord was part of Raymond Domenech's France squad that played in the 2006 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 would lose the shootout 5–3.

It is noteworthy that Wiltord is the most capped French international football player among those that did not take part in Les Bleus' triumph at the 1998 World Cup.

Club

International

International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1.	31 March 1999	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Armenia	1–0	2–0	UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying
2.	5 June 1999	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Russia	2–1	2–3	UEFA Euro 2000 qualifying
3.	29 March 2000	Hampden Park, Glasgow, Scotland	Scotland	0–1	0–2	Friendly match
4.	6 June 2000	Stade Mohamed V, Casablanca, Morocco	Morocco	1–5	1–5	2000 King Hassan II International Cup Tournament
5.	11 June 2000	Jan Breydel Stadium, Bruges, Belgium	Denmark	3–0	3–0	UEFA Euro 2000
6.	2 July 2000	Feijenoord Stadion, Rotterdam, Netherlands	Italy	1–1	2–1	UEFA Euro 2000
7.	4 October 2000	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Cameroon	1–0	1–1	Friendly match
8.	15 November 2000	BJK İnönü Stadium, Istanbul, Turkey	Turkey	0–2	0–4	Friendly match
9.	24 March 2001	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Japan	3–0	5–0	Friendly match
10.	25 April 2001	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Portugal	1–0	4–0	Friendly match
11.	30 May 2001	Daegu World Cup Stadium, Daegu, South Korea	South Korea	5–0	5–0	2001 FIFA Confederations Cup
12.	3 June 2001	Munsu Cup Stadium, Ulsan, South Korea	Mexico	1–0	4–0	2001 FIFA Confederations Cup
13.	7 September 2002	GSP Stadium, Nicosia, Cyprus	Cyprus	1–2	1–2	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
14.	12 October 2002	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Slovenia	4–0	5–0	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
15.	16 October 2002	Ta' Qali Stadium, Ta' Qali, Malta	Malta	0–3	0–4	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
16.	29 March 2003	Stade Félix-Bollaert, Lens, France	Malta	1–0	6–0	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
17.	26 June 2003	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Turkey	3–1	3–2	2003 FIFA Confederations Cup
18.	20 August 2003	Stade de Genève, Genève, Switzerland	Switzerland	0–1	0–2	Friendly match
19.	6 September 2003	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Cyprus	2–0	5–0	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
20.	6 September 2003	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Cyprus	3–0	5–0	UEFA Euro 2004 qualifying
21.	28 May 2004	Stade de la Mosson, Montpellier, France	Andorra	1–0	4–0	Friendly match
22.	28 May 2004	Stade de la Mosson, Montpellier, France	Andorra	2–0	4–0	Friendly match
23.	13 October 2004	GSP Stadium, Nicosia, Cyprus	Cyprus	0–1	0–2	2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
24.	12 October 2005	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Cyprus	2–0	4–0	2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA)
25.	1 March 2006	Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France	Slovakia	1–1	1–2	Friendly match
26.	25 April 2006	Stade Félix-Bollaert, Lens, France	Denmark	2–0	2–0	Friendly match

Wiltord's parents moved from Martinique to metropolitan France before his birth.

In 2015, he 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."

Wiltord was sponsored by sportswear company Nike and appeared in Nike commercials. In a global Nike advertising campaign in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, he starred in a "Secret Tournament" commercial (branded "Scopion KO") directed by Terry Gilliam, appearing alongside football players such as Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, Edgar Davids, Fabio Cannavaro, Francesco Totti, Ronaldinho, Luís Figo and Hidetoshi Nakata, with former player Eric Cantona the tournament "referee".

Club

Bordeaux

• French Ligue 1 (1): 1998–99

Arsenal

• Premier League (2): 2001–02, 2003–04
• FA Cup (2): 2002, 2003
• FA Community Shield (1): 2002

Lyon

• French Ligue 1 (3): 2004–05, 2005–06, 2006–07

International

• UEFA European Championship (1): 2000
• FIFA Confederations Cup (2): 2001, 2003

Individual

• French Ligue 1 Top Scorer (1): 1998–99 (22 goals with Bordeaux)
• French Footballer of the Year (1): 1999
• FIFA Confederations Cup Top Scorer (1): 2001
• Premier League Goal of the Month (1): August 2002
• Premier League Player of the Month (1): August 2002