Steve Marlet (born 10 January 1974) is a French former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a forward. He was

capped In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

23 times and scored six goals for the French national team, winning the

Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, ...

in 2001 and 2003 and featuring at

Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. The ...

Early life

Marlet was born in

Pithiviers Pithiviers () is a commune in the Loiret department, north central France. It is one of the subprefectures of Loiret. It is twinned with Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, England and Burglengenfeld in Bavaria, Germany. Its attractions incl ...

, Loiret.

Club career

Early career

Marlet began his professional career with Red Star.

Fulham

Marlet held the record for Fulham's biggest transfer fee until July 2008, as the newly promoted

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

team paid £11.5 million to sign him in August 2001 from Olympique Lyonnais. His expectations was well received by France national team coach

Roger Lemerre Roger Léon Maurice Lemerre-Desprez (born 18 June 1941) is a French professional football manager and former player. During his managerial career, he was in charge of the French, Tunisian and Moroccan national teams. He also managed numerous c ...

, suggesting ''"He will progress at Fulham"''. However, he only managed 11 goals in 54 league games, as then-manager

Jean Tigana Amadou Jean Tigana (born 23 June 1955) is a French former footballer and coach. He has played in midfield and managed professional football extensively throughout France, including 52 appearances and one goal for the France national football team ...

was dismissed during the season. He played just one game in the 2003–04 season for Fulham, in which he scored. He was then loaned out to Olympique de Marseille on 27 August, with an option to sign permanently. While on loan, Marlet partnered Didier Drogba up front as Marseille advanced through the 2003-04 UEFA Cup, before losing

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

. Marlet's poor performances for Fulham led to chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed taking Tigana to the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its c ...

for the high transfer fee. Tigana, who had ties to Lyon and had briefly been Marlet's agent, was accused of signing him for an exorbitant fee and taking a cut of the fee for himself. The charges were quickly dropped.

Wolfsburg and Lorient

On 21 August 2005, after his release from Fulham, Marlet signed a one-year deal with the option for a second year, at

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...

of the German

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

. On his arrival, manager

Thomas Strunz Thomas Strunz (born 25 April 1968) is a German former professional footballer who played mostly as a defensive midfielder. Over the course of 12 seasons, he amassed Bundesliga totals of 235 games and 32 goals, representing in the competition Ba ...

said "Steve Marlet is very well-known in international football, a player who is fast and versatile". Marlet only scored one Bundesliga goal and was not given the second year of his contract. He trained for two weeks with

Paris St. Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional Association football, football List of football clubs in France, club based in Paris, France. They compete ...

before signing a one-year deal at

FC Lorient Football Club Lorient Bretagne Sud (; commonly referred to FC Lorient or simply Lorient) is a French association football club based in Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town ('' commune'') and seaport in the Morbihan department of Brittany in we ...

, newly promoted to Ligue 1. He was attracted by the attacking style of manager Christian Gourcuff.

Later career

After being released by Lorient, he went on trial with

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

from 6 to 30 October 2007, Chicago Fire and Reims. In July 2011, he joined

FC Red Star Saint-Ouen Red Star Football Club, also known simply as Red Star (), is a French association football club founded in Paris in 1897, and is the fourth oldest French football club, after Standard AC of Paris, Le Havre AC and Girondins de Bordeaux. In t ...

in the third tier of French football, the

Championnat National The Championnat de France National ( en, French National Championship), commonly referred to as simply National or Division 3, serves as the third division of the French football league system behind Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. Contested by 18 clubs, ...

, where he spent the last season of his career.

Career statistics

Club

:Source:

International goals

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

Honours

Lyon * Coupe de la Ligue: 2000–01 Fulham * UEFA Intertoto Cup: 2002

References

External links

*
Sporting-Heroes.net photos and stats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marlet, Steve 1974 births Living people People from Pithiviers Sportspeople from Loiret French footballers France international footballers Association football forwards Association football wingers Red Star F.C. players AJ Auxerre players Olympique Lyonnais players Fulham F.C. players Olympique de Marseille players Premier League players VfL Wolfsburg players FC Lorient players 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup players UEFA Euro 2004 players FIFA Confederations Cup-winning players French expatriate footballers French people of Martiniquais descent Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Bundesliga players Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Germany French expatriate sportspeople in England French expatriate sportspeople in Germany FCM Aubervilliers players Black French sportspeople Footballers from Centre-Val de Loire