The international career of Paris Saint Germain's lanky goalkeeper Lionel Letizi was over before it ever had a chance to take off.

Two minutes into his second appearance for Les Bleus, in a friendly away to Russia in 1998, disaster struck for the then 24-year-old. Frank Leboeuf played an awkward back pass and, instead of hoofing the ball up the pitch, Letizi fatefully tried to control it. To his horror, it bobbled up and bounced off his leg for Russian striker Sergei Youran to apply a simple finish.

The timing could hardly have been worse for the Nice-born custodian. When Aimé Jacquet sat down to pen the now legendary list of players who would go on to lift the World Cup trophy, Letizi's name was not on it.

To his credit, the PSG No. 1 took the setback on his chin. "When Jacquet called me to say I wasn't in the final 22, I think my parents were more upset than I was!" he recalls.

One of a rare and dying breed of footballers, the 31-year-old has never taken the game too seriously. His father – a goalkeeper, just like his grandfather – has distinct memories of a telling episode from the young Lionel's childhood. "He got called up by France's schoolboy side to go to a training camp in the south west, but he just didn't feel like going. He didn't grow up with any big ambitions. He's always treated football for what it is – a game."

"The most important thing in life is the health of your loved ones," he says. And he means it. After taking his local club Nice up into Ligue 1, he ended his five-season stint at the Stade du Ray when his grandfather died in 1996.

"I needed to get away from the place and think about something else," he remembers, and the move took him to Metz, where he resisted the allure of a big team until the club were forced to sell him to PSG in 2000. "Money is too important in football," he argues. "It interferes with the playing side and it pains me to see all these agents hovering around the youngsters."

An idealist, Letizi has been an active member of the footballers' union (UNFP) ever since he started out as a professional, and today sits on their central committee. His down-to-earth simplicity makes him an easy target for jokes in the dressing-room, though.

Surrounded by players in designer clothes and expensive hairstyles, Letizi cuts a unique figure in his parka and supermarket jeans. "The guys all take the mickey a bit, but I'm not going to change. When I see photos of me ten years ago, I've got exactly the same haircut!"

That same impervious resistance to pressure serves him well on the pitch, where his ice-cool performances have been one of the only consistent positives in a miserable season at the Parc des Princes. And it also meant he waited his chance when an injury saw him lose his place to Jérôme Alonzo in 2002. Despite a run in the Coupe de France-winning team last season, he made just six Ligue 1 appearances, but rather than create tension within the side or complain to the press, Letizi supported his friend and rival and finally won back the goalkeeper's jersey.

The rumour mill predicted that this season's trials would finally test his patience and see him leave the capital, but it really should have come as no surprise when Letizi signed a two-year extension to his contract last month. The signs are, though, that a little ambition has crept into his game.

"I came to PSG to win a title and the Coupe de France is really just the minimum," he said. "I'm giving myself two more chances." Few people would begrudge him that.