Career Story

The Beginnings

Laurent Robert started his career in the youth system of French Club Montpellier, a team known to Newcastle fans in recent times for the flop acquisitions of Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Remy Cabella. He broke into the Montpellier first team in his late teens during the 94/95 season and played over 100 games for them before securing a summer transfer to a pre-Qatari owned Paris Saint Germain in 1999. He earned his first cap for France that same summer.

PSG were still a top club though, having secured their 2nd league title 6 seasons prior the mercurial Frenchman joining them and with European football appearing regularly on their fixture calendar. He had a solid debut season with the French capital club, scoring 9 goals en route to a 2nd place finish behind champions Monaco. Those 9 goals saw him place highly in the scoring charts, with future Magpies Antoine Sibierski and Stephane Guivarc’h (World cup winning legend) keeping him company. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Robert was sent off 3 times. One of those occasions was for a dangerous tackle against Lyon in a match PSG contrived to lose. His poor disciplinary record cost him 6 matches in total that year.

In his second season, he really made a name for himself on the European stage, scoring 3 goals in the Champions League and 15 in the league, great numbers for a winger. Part of a strong squad that included the likes of Nicolas Anelka and Jay Jay Okocha, PSG ended up a disappointing 9th place. That speaks more for the team than it does for Robert, who excelled on an individual level.