Full name Moussa Dembélé Playing position 2002–2004 US Cergy Clos Nationality French Career start 2013 | Place of birth Pontoise, France Number 10 Height 1.83 m Weight 74 kg | |
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Date of birth (1996-07-12) 12 July 1996 (age 20) Current teams Celtic F.C. (#10 / Forward), France national under-20 football team Similar Scott Sinclair, Leigh Griffiths, Ousmane Dembélé, Mousa Dembélé, Scott Brown Profiles | ||
Moussa Dembélé (born 12 July 1996) is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for Scottish Premiership club Celtic.
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Developed at Paris Saint-Germain and English team Fulham, he made his professional debut for the latter in the Premier League in November 2013, and totalled 19 goals in 64 competitive games for them before joining Celtic in 2016.
He has earned over 30 caps for France at youth level, and has recently stepped up to the under-21 team.
Early life and family
Dembélé was born in Pontoise, Île-de-France. His family is Malian.
Fulham
Dembélé signed for Fulham aged sixteen, from Paris Saint-Germain, in 2012. He subsequently became a regular in the Fulham U18 team and won the Premier Academy League in his first season with the club. He signed his first contract with Fulham in July 2013 until the summer of 2015.
Dembélé was an unused substitute for the Premier League match against Swansea City on 23 November 2013. He made his competitive debut a week later against West Ham United, coming on as a substitute in the 83rd minute for Kieran Richardson in a 3–0 loss at the Boleyn Ground, but finished the game with an injury. On 30 March 2014, he started for the first time in the Premier League, as Fulham lost 3–1 at home to Everton. The club ended the season with relegation to the Championship.
On 28 October 2014, in the fourth round of the League Cup, Dembélé scored his first professional goals, a brace which put Fulham 2–0 up at home against Derby County; however, the match ended in a 2–5 defeat.
Dembélé scored his first league goal for Fulham in a 2–1 win against Blackburn Rovers on 13 September 2015, and scored a brace in a 4–2 win against Reading on 24 October as Fulham overcame a 0–2 deficit to win 4–2. Dembélé scored twice again in the following match a week later as Fulham beat Bristol City 4–1 at Ashton Gate. By the end of the calendar year, he had totalled ten goals for the season.
Celtic
On 28 June 2016, Scottish Premiership club Celtic signed Dembélé on a four-year contract. He made his debut on 12 July, his 20th birthday, partnering Leigh Griffiths up front in a 1–0 loss at Gibraltar's Lincoln Red Imps in the first leg of the second qualifying round of the season's UEFA Champions League.
On 3 August, Dembélé scored his first goal for the club with a 92nd-minute penalty against Astana—after having won the penalty himself—to put Celtic into the Champions League play-offs. He followed this up by netting twice against Motherwell in the Scottish League Cup last 16 on 10 August, as Celtic ran out 5–0 winners. He also scored the fourth goal in a 5–2 win over Hapoel Be'er Sheva the following week.
On 10 September, as his club beat Rangers 5–1 at Parkhead, he scored Celtic's first Old Firm derby league hat-trick since Stevie Chalmers in 1966, and the first Celtic player to score a hat-trick in any game against Rangers since Harry Hood in 1973. It was also considered to be a "perfect hat-trick", given his goals were scored with his head, his right foot and finally with his left foot. On 24 September, Dembélé scored twice in a 6–1 win over Kilmarnock, then fours days later he scored his first two Champions League group stage goals against Manchester City, as Celtic finished the match with a 3–3 draw. His goalscoring form at that time saw him named the Premiership player of the month for September.
Dembélé scored a late winner in a 1–0 victory over Rangers on 23 October, sending Celtic to the League Cup final, and scored again during the final against Aberdeen, netting from the penalty spot as Celtic won 3–0 for his first senior honour.
Dembélé was linked with a move to Chelsea during the January 2017 transfer window; coincidentally, he was sent to a hospital in Chelsea for medical treatment on 31 January, the final day of the transfer window. Later that day, however, he confirmed he was staying by tweeting a picture of himself celebrating a goal above an image of Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jordan Belfort, from the film The Wolf of Wall Street.
He scored back-to-back hat-tricks in February 2017, in 5–2 and 6–0 victories over St Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership and Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Cup, respectively.
International career
Dembélé was part of the France under-19 squad which reached the semi-finals of the 2015 European Championship, scoring in group stage victories over Ukraine and the hosts, Greece. He made his debut for the under-21 team in October 2016, coming on as a second-half substitute and scoring one of France's goals in a 5–1 win over Georgia.
Career statistics
As of match played 19 March 2017Club
Celtic