Frank Lampard

Frank James Lampard, Jr. (born 20 June 1978) is an English football midfielder currently playing for Premier League club Chelsea and the England national team. He plays most often as a box-to-box midfielder and has also enjoyed spells in a more advanced attacking midfield role. Lampard is Chelsea's top active goalscorer with 130 goals, the most in club history for a midfielder, and is the second midfielder in Premier League history to score 100 goals, after Matthew Le Tissier.

Lampard began his career at West Ham United, his father's former club. Joining the youth team in 1994, he had secured a place in the first team by the 1997–1998 season. He helped the team to their highest ever finishing position Premier League in the 1998–99 season. The following season Lampard scored 14 goals in all competitions from midfield. With progress stagnating at West Ham, he moved to rival London club Chelsea in 2001 for £11 million.

From his debut onwards he was ever-present in the Chelsea first team, setting a record 164 consecutive Premier League appearances. He established himself as a prolific scorer at the West London club and won his first major honours in 2005, winning the Premier League and League Cup. Lampard won more club honours under coach Jose Mourinho; the 2005–06 Premier League title and a domestic cup double in 2007. He signed a new contract in 2008, becoming the highest paid Premier League footballer, and scored in his first Champions League Final that same year.

Internationally, Lampard gained his first senior England cap in 1999 team and has played in Euro 2004 (scoring three goals in four games), the 2006 World Cup and the Euro 2008 qualifiers. He has two children, Luna and Isla, with Elen Rives.

Biography

Born in Romford, London, Frank Lampard is the son of Frank Lampard, Sr., a former England fullback and two-time FA Cup winner with West Ham United. His mother, Pat, died of pneumonia on 24 April 2008, and since her death his goal celebration has consisted of pointing to the sky and looking upwards as a tribute. His uncle is Tottenham Hotspur coach Harry Redknapp, and his cousin, Jamie Redknapp, spent twelve seasons with Liverpool and earned 17 caps for England before retiring in 2005.

Lampard was educated at Brentwood School, an independent school in Essex, where he was a classmate of television personality Jodie Marsh. He gained an A* in his Latin GCSE, one of the 12 GSCEs he took. He reportedly has an IQ higher than 150, putting him in the most intelligent 0.1 per cent of the population.

Club career

West Ham United

Lampard joined West Ham, where his father was the assistant coach, as an apprentice in July 1994 as part of their youth system, and signed his professional forms a year later. He was loaned to Division Two team Swansea City in October 1995, and debuted in a 2–0 win over Bradford City, and scoring his first senior goal in a game against Brighton & Hove Albion. Lampard made nine league appearances for Swansea City before returning to West Ham in January 1996, with whom he played his first match at the end of the month against Coventry City, and spent the remainder of the season as a reserve.

The next year, a broken leg suffered in a March game against Aston Villa prematurely put an end to Lampard's 1996–97 season after thirteen appearances. He had to wait until the 1997–98 campaign to score his first goal for West Ham, which came in a road victory over Barnsley. He became a starter in 1998–99 and appeared in every match as West Ham finished fifth in the Premier League standings. Following the sale of teammate and friend Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United after the 2000–01 season, combined with the departures of his father and Redknapp, Lampard followed suit and left West Ham, but chose to stay in London by joining Chelsea for an £11 million fee.

Chelsea

2001–2004

 Lampard's Premiership debut with Chelsea came on 19 August 2001 in a 1–1 draw with Newcastle United, while his first red card came in a match against Tottenham Hotspur on 16 September. He scored a total of seven goals in all competitions. Lampard appeared in all of Chelsea's league matches and scored eight goals in the 2001–02 season. He netted the match-winner in Chelsea's 2002–03 season-opener against Charlton Athletic, and scored his first European goal in a UEFA Cup first-round loss to Viking FK. The following season, he was selected as the Barclays Player of the Month in September 2003, and the PFA Fans' Player of the Month in October. He reached double figures in league goals (10) for the first time in his career, in addition to four goals in fourteen Champions League matches, as Chelsea advanced to the semi-finals.

2005–2007

Lampard played in all thirty-eight Premiership matches for the third consecutive season in 2004–05. He finished with 13 goals (19 in all competitions), in addition to leading the league in assists with sixteen. He won the first major trophy of his career as Chelsea bagged their first Premiership title in fifty years, by a twelve point margin. Though Chelsea were eliminated in the Champions League semi-finals by league rivals Liverpool, they took home the Football League Cup, in which Lampard scored twice in six matches. He landed his first personal award by being named the FWA Footballer of the Year.

He netted a career-high 16 league goals in 2005–06, which marked an increase for the fifth consecutive season. In September 2005, Lampard was selected as a member of the inaugural FIFPro World XI. His record of consecutive Premiership appearances ended at 164 (five better than previous record-holder David James) on 28 December 2005, when he sat out a match against Manchester City due to illness. The streak began on 13 October 2001, during his first season with the club. He finished as runner-up to Ronaldinho for both the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year awards.

Due to a back injury sustained by John Terry, Lampard spent much of the 2006–07 campaign as team captain in his absence. He enjoyed a streak of seven goals in eight games and scored his 77th goal for Chelsea in a 3–2 win over Everton F.C. on 17 December, overtaking Dennis Wise as Chelsea's highest scoring midfielder. Lampard finished with 21 goals in all competitions, including a career-high six FA Cup goals; he had scored seven Cup goals in his first eleven seasons combined. He scored his first Chelsea hat-trick in the third-round tie against Macclesfield Town on 6 January 2007. He scored two goals to help Chelsea to a quarter-final draw with Tottenham Hotspur after having trailed 3–1, and he was named the FA Cup player-of-the-round for his performance. In a post-match interview following Chelsea's FA Cup Final victory over Manchester United, Lampard said he wanted to stay at the club "forever."

2007–present

Lampard's 2007-08 season was riddled with injury, managing to play 40 matches, 24 of which in the league—the fewest he had played in a season since 1996–97. On 16 February 2008, Lampard became the eighth Chelsea player to score 100 goals for the club in a 3–1 FA Cup fifth-round win over Huddersfield Town. After the final whistle, Lampard removed his jersey and flashed a T-shirt to the Chelsea fans with "100 Not Out, They Are All For You, Thanks" printed across the front. He scored four goals in a 6–1 rout of Derby County on 12 March. On 30 April, Lampard, grieving the loss of his mother a week earlier, decided to play in the second leg of Chelsea's Champions League semifinal against Liverpool, who were eliminated on 4–3 aggregate due to a penalty he took in the first period of extra time. In the final against Manchester United, he scored an equalising goal in the 45th minute. The match ended 1-1 after extra-time and Chelsea lost on penalties.

On 13 August 2008, Lampard signed a new five-year contract with Chelsea worth £39.2 million, making him the highest-paid Premiership player. He started the 2008–09 season by scoring five goals in his first eleven league matches, and scored his hundredth career Premiership goal in a 5–0 victory over Sunderland on 2 November. Eighteen of Lampard's hundred goals were penalties. He was named Premier League Player of the Month for the third time in his career in October. After a streak of matches without scoring, Lampard scored three goals in the span of two days, the first being against West Bromwich Albion and the latter two against Fulham. On January 17, 2009, he made his 400th Chelsea appearance against Stoke City, scoring a stoppage time winner. He scored twice against Liverpool in the second-leg quarter finals of the Champions League, and provided two assists in the next game against Arsenal. Lampard finished the Premier League season with 12 goals, and won the Chelsea player of the Year for 2009. Lampard's 20th goal of the season was the winning goal in the FA Cup Final against Everton. It was the fourth consecutive season that he scored 20 or more goals.

International career

Lampard was first spotted by England under-21 manager Peter Taylor, and his under-21 debut came on 13 November 1997 in a match against Greece. He played for the under-21 side from November 1997 to June 2000, and scored nine goals, a mark bettered only by Alan Shearer and Francis Jeffers.

Lampard earned his first cap for England on 10 October 1999 in a 2–1 friendly win over Belgium, and scored his first goal on 20 August 2003 in a 3–1 defeat of Croatia. He was bypassed for Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup finals, and had to wait until Euro 2004 to participate in his first international competition. England reached the quarter-finals with Lampard netting three goals in four matches, and he was named in the team of the tournament by UEFA. He became a regular in the squad following the retirement of Paul Scholes, and was voted England Player of the Year by fans in 2004 and 2005.

Though Lampard played every minute of England's 2006 World Cup matches, he went scoreless as England were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Portugal on penalties. He was booed by England supporters while coming on as a second-half substitute during England's Euro 2008 qualifying match against Estonia on 13 October 2007, and finished with one goal (a 3–2 loss to Croatia on 21 November) as England failed to qualify for the tournament. He scored his first international goal in two years in a 4-0 win over Slovakia in March 2009, and also created another for Wayne Rooney. Lampard's goal was the 500th England goal scored at Wembley.

Personal life

Lampard lives in Surrey and has two children with his former fiancée Elen Rives, Luna and Isla; the latter was born just hours after Chelsea won the 2007 FA Cup. His autobiography, Totally Frank, was published in August 2006. In mid-February 2009 it was reported that Lampard and Rives had split, with Rives taking between £1m to £12.5m in settlement fees from Lampard's estimated £25m net worth.

A year after the death of his mother, on April 25, 2009, Lampard was involved in a radio confrontation with James O'Brien on the London radio station LBC 97.3. Newspapers had reported that following Lampard's split from Rives their children were living with her in a small flat while Lampard had converted their family home into a bachelor pad. Lampard phoned-in, objecting to the assertion that he was "weak" and "scum" for allowing his children to live in inferior conditions to him, and that he had not fought "tooth and nail" to keep his family together. Public comments on Lampard's reaction praised his 'brave' and 'articulate' handling of the situation.

In 2000, Lampard, Ferdinand and Kieron Dyer appeared on a sex video that was filmed at the holiday resort of Ayia Napa on Cyprus. Channel 4 aired a brief clip as part of their 2004 documentary Sex, Footballers and Videotape, claiming it was used to "remind the viewer that this is based on real life."

He is a supporter of the Conservative Party, but admitted that he had yet to vote in an election. British media reported that Lampard showed an unusually high IQ score during neurological research carried about by the Chelsea Club doctor, Bryan English. English stated that "Frank Lampard scored one of the highest set of marks ever recorded by the company doing the tests".