Joël Bats

Joël Bats (born 4 January 1957) is a French former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He spent his entire senior club career in his native France, appearing in a total of 553 competitive club matches and 504 Division 1 matches for Sochaux, Auxerre and Paris Saint-Germain from 1976 to 1992. He made 50 appearances, 35 competitive matches and 15 friendly matches, for the France national team.

Club career Sochaux Bats joined the youth academy of FC Sochaux-Montbéliard. He played for Sochaux's U19 youth team until the summer of 1974. He began his Sochaux professional career at the start of the 1974–75 season. Bats spent the 1974–75 and 1975–76 seasons playing only for the club's reserve team. After Bats was promoted to the club's first team in the summer of 1976, he had to compete with Albert Rust for playing time over the next four seasons, with the two of them being alternated in matches. Bats stayed at Sochaux until the end of the 1979–80 season.

Auxerre In the summer of 1980, Bats joined AJ Auxerre, which would make its Division 1 debut in the 1980–81 season after having earned promotion to Division 1 by winning the 1979–80 French Division 2 title. He became the undisputed first-choice goalkeeper during each of his five seasons at Auxerre.

Paris Saint-Germain In the summer of 1985, Bats joined Paris Saint-Germain. PSG won their first Division 1/Ligue 1 title in 1986. Bats was PSG's first-choice goalkeeper during each of his seven seasons there. He played 286 competitive matches for PSG until his retirement at the end of the 1991–92 season.

International career On 7 September 1983, Bats made his debut for the senior France team in a 3–1 friendly away loss to Denmark.

Bats played all 8 of the 1986 World Cup qualifying matches and France finished at the top of its UEFA qualifying group.

Personal life Bats was diagnosed with testicular cancer in the summer of 1982, but quickly made a full recovery after surgery. As therapy during his convalescence, he took up writing poetry, and had two volumes of it published.

Honours Paris Saint-Germain Division 1: 1985–86

France UEFA European Championship: 1984 Artemio Franchi Cup: 1985

Individual Onze Mondial: 1985, 1986, 1989