Lamine DIATTA

In the Summer of 1998, Lamine Diatta tried his luck in France at Toulouse. A year after his professional debut, he signed for Marseille for just a couple of weeks. When Laurent Blanc left Marseille, the club reviewed their back four personnel, and sold Diatta to Rennes for 2.5 Million Euros. With the undisputed centre-half pairing of Arribagé and Sommeil doing so well, the Senegalese defender was picked as a right-back and used his strength and pace to good effect, whilst often getting on the end of set-pieces, scoring 6 goals. In the 2000/2001 season, the arrival of Escudé relegated Diatta to understudy. In 2001/2002, the new Manager Gourcuff successfully put him back in central defence, so much so that Diatta was called up for the 2002 World Cup. Under the orders of Halilhodzic, he was caught playing late at night on his PlayStation and was dropped for two months. When Bölöni took over in 2003/2004, he returned the size and became a lynchpin in defence, sometimes on the right, sometimes in at centre-back. Out of contract in 2004, he joined Lyon.