Philippe Mexès

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Personal information
Philippe Mexès

Date of birth	March 30, 1982
Place of birth	Toulouse, France
Height	1.87 m
Nickname	Philou, Le Laurent Blond
Playing position	centreback
Club information
Current club	A.S. Roma
Youth clubs
1997-1999	Toulouse FC AJ Auxerre
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1999-04 2004-	AJ Auxerre A.S. Roma	133 (7) 70 (4)
National team²
2002-	France	6 (0)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of February 12, 2006. ² National team caps and goals correct as of August 17, 2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Philippe Mexès (born March 30, 1982 in Toulouse, France) is a French professional football (soccer) player, who currently plays as a centreback for Italian club A.S. Roma.

Philippe Mexès began his career with local club Toulouse FC, with his older sister regularly taking him to the training sessions. However, he left for AJ Auxerre's youth team when he was sixteen years old. He successfully participated in the Under-18 and Under-21 French national football teams, eventually winning a spot in the senior squad in August 2002. Since 2002 he has only been called up a few times, after he failed to make the French squad for the 2004 European Football Championship. He was recently called up for France's friendly match against Bosnia-Herzegovina in August 2006.

Mexès is currently one of the backbones of the A.S. Roma team coached by Luciano Spalletti. After a difficult first season with the capitoline club, Mexès began the 2005-06 campaign on the bench, leaving the central defender spot to Sammy Kuffour. However, as Kuffour was on national team duty for Ghana, Mexès slowly gained playing time. He quickly became a key player in the record-breaking Roma campaign and he was widely considered one of the best defenders of the competition.

[edit] Honours

European Under-18 Football Championship: 2000 (France)
Runner-up European Under-21 Football Championship: 2002 (France)
Confederations Cup: 2003 (France)
French Cup: 2003 (AJ Auxerre)
France Football "Hope of the Year": 2000

[edit] External links

A.S. Roma - Current Squad
1 Curci \| 2 Panucci \| 3 Martínez \| 4 Wilhelmsson \| 5 Mexès \| 7 Pizarro \| 8 Aquilani \| 10 Totti \| 11 Taddei \| 12 Pipolo \| 13 Chivu \| 14 Faty \| 16 De Rossi \| 17 Tavano \| 18 Virga \| 19 Defendi \| 20 Perrotta \| 21 Ferrari \| 22 Tonetto \| 23 Vučinić \| 27 Julio Sergio \| 28 Rosi \| 30 Mancini \| 32 Doni \| 35 Okaka \| 77 Cassetti \| Coach Spalletti