Nantes Goalkeeper Alban Lafont Becomes 13th Player To Be Given 10/10 By L'Equipe

Alban Lafont became only the 13th player to be awarded a perfect 10/10 rating by L'Equipe, as Nantes had their goalkeeper to thank for a win over PSG.

Just a few days ago PSG earned a brilliant 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League last 16, thanks to a moment of magic from Kylian Mbappe.

Whilst Mbappe's off the ball play, jinxing through defenders and perfect strike were all being praised, Lionel Messi's missed penalty and general poor performance earned him a 3/10 rating.

Messi is the only player in the history of L'Equipe's rankings to be given the perfect score twice, and on Sunday a new player joined the club of those to be given 10/10 by the French outlet.

Days after the high of beating Real, Mauricio Pochettino's side crashed to a 3-1 loss in Ligue 1 to Nantes, with the game all but over at half time, with hosts 3-0 up.

Despite the three goals, and conceding to Neymar in the 47th minute, it was actually Nantes keeper Lafont who was the team's best player on the day, which included saving the Brazilian's terrible penalty, and he earned himself the rare full marks from well known harsh scorers L'Equipe.

Nantes keeper Alban Lafont becomes the 13th player (3rd keeper and 1st since the 90s) to get a 10 rating in L’Equipe. Historic performance in 3-1 win over PSG pic.twitter.com/MIwE45IzAV

— Mohammed Ali (@mohammedali_93) February 20, 2022

The perfect score makes the 23-year-old only the third goalkeeper to be awarded the honour by the newspaper and the first since 1997.

That means the Frenchman wasn't even born the last time it happened, which was actually scored by a keeper in a game against Nantes.

The honour belonged to Danish goalkeeper Lars Windfeld, in a UEFA Cup game against the Ligue 1 side for Aarhus and it was actually the last 10/10 for 13 years until Messi came along.

🔎 | FOCUS

Nantes held on to beat PSG 3:1 this evening largely thanks to this brilliant goalkeeping performance by Alban Lafont:

🧤 8 saves
📥 8 saved shots from inside the box
⛔️ 1 penalty saved
🚀 2 clearances
🏃 1/1 successful run out
📈 9.3 SofaScore rating

👏👏#FCNPSG pic.twitter.com/42R4ZD4rRI

— SofaScore (@SofaScoreINT) February 19, 2022

Lafont also has the achievement of being only the second player in the 21st century to earn the accolade without scoring a hat-trick.

The previous one went to Dusan Tadic, after his performance in the Champions League for Ajax against Real Madrid in 2019, with the former Southampton player picking up some assists.

It's not the first time that PSG have been on the wrong end of a fantastic goalkeeping display recently, but at least this one didn't completely embarrass them.

Pochettino's side were knocked out of Coupe de France earlier this month when Nice shot stopper Marcin Bulka saved two penalties in the shoot out.

What's embarrassing is the fact that Bulka is on loan from the Parisians, but that didn't stop him from celebrating wildly!