Philippe Mexès
Philippe Mexes at the 2012 European Football Championship
Philippe Mexes ( born March 30, 1982 in Toulouse ) is a French football player. In France, viewed early on as the new Laurent Blanc, he is an elegant central defender who can bring not only the opposing strikers, but also defenses to despair with his heading ability.
Career
Toulouse
For the young Philippe Mexes of football was the only way of leisure time, he came to the local football club Toulouse- Mirail, where he began his footballing career. Before he was discovered by talent scouts the AJ Auxerre and the age of 16 moved to the Burgundy, it was coined in the youth department of FC Toulouse seven years. As a first success with Auxerre, he was able to celebrate winning the Amateur Championship in the spring of 1999.
AJ Auxerre
Shortly afterwards he came into the first team Auxerre and debuted on 10 November 1999 in Ligue 1, December 8, 1999, he could score his first competitive goal. Mexes made more and more attention to itself, the magazine France Football named him as the hope of the year. He was a top performer at center-back Auxerre, the European top clubs were aware of him; so offered, among others, Manchester United for him a transfer fee in the amount of 20 million euros.
But he remained true to Auxerre and contributed significantly to qualifying for the Champions League in the season 2002 /03, which helped him finally to Europe-wide notoriety. At the end of the same season Mexes kept the Coupe de France in the sky - could Auxerre on 31 May 2003, defeating Paris Saint- Germain 2-1.
AS Roma
After he signed for season 2004/ 05 AS Roma, he received a six-week ban by FIFA because he had a valid contract with Auxerre. AJ Auxerre and AS Roma could not agree on the transfer fee for Mexes; ultimately, FIFA put them firmly on seven million euros and imposed a transfer ban for the season 2005/ 06 on the Romans, who says that they can not engage players.
AC Milan
For the 2011/12 season Mexes a free transfer to the Italian champions AC Milan.
National
Philippe Mexes has played for all youth teams of France, accordingly, he can also show success in this area. So he became U-18 European Championship in 2000, two years later, he reached with his team the final of the U- 21 Championship, which won the team of the Czech Republic in a penalty shootout for themselves. He was the youngest of the French U -21, which consisted of renowned talent, including Jean -Alain Boumsong, Djibril Cissé, Olivier Kapo, Julien Escudé, Sidney Govou, Benoit Pedretti and Anthony Réveillère.
On 16 October 2002 Mexes made his debut at 20 years for France's national team. The opponents in this qualifier for Euro 2004, Malta. Mexes was substituted in the 85th minute for Lilian Thuram and France won 4-0. 2003 belonged Mexes to the French team that won the Confederations Cup with a final win against Cameroon, he played several times from the beginning. However, when a year later taking place European Championships, he was not nominated by coach Jacques Santini. More surprising, some fell from the non- appointment for the next big tournament. Despite an optimal season at club level with consistently good performances it to participate in the 2006 World Cup was denied.
By early June 2010 Mexes had completed 13 games for the French national team, six under Santini and seven under Raymond Domenech. He has been called numerous times but could not due to injury or tactical decisions for the team to use. This changed with the inauguration of the new Sélectionneurs Laurent Blanc, who confided to a new center-back pair in his first eight games with Mexes and Adil Rami to the young. After his injury and almost elfmonatigem absence at the Bleus Mexes returned back end of February 2012 and was also one of Blanc's European Championship squad in 2012. There he was employed in the group matches.