Manuel Akanji

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Manuel Akanji
Ser-Swi (30) .jpg
Manuel Akanji at the 2018 World Cup
Personnel
Surname Manuel Obafemi Akanji
birthday July 19, 1995
place of birth Neftenbach , Switzerland
Size 187 cm
position Defense
Juniors
Years station
2004-2007 FC Wiesendangen
2007-2014 FC Winterthur
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
2014-2015 FC Winterthur 35 (1)
2015-2018 FC Basel 42 (5)
2018– Borussia Dortmund 65 (1)
National team
Years selection Games (goals) 2
2014-2015 Switzerland U20 5 (0)
2014-2015 Switzerland U21 4 (0)
2017– Switzerland 22 (0)
1 Only league games are given.
Status: end of season 2019/20

2 As of November 18, 2019

Manuel Obafemi Akanji (born July 19, 1995 in Neftenbach ) is a Swiss football player . The central defender is under contract with Borussia Dortmund and is part of the Swiss national team .

Club career

Winterthur

Akanji first spent his junior years at FC Wiesendangen , later he joined FC Winterthur at the age of eleven . In the 2013/14 season he played for the U18 team and a year later for the second team. At the same time, he began an apprenticeship as a businessman . On July 1, 2014, the defender was appointed to the first team in Winterthur after he had already played two games in the second-rate Challenge League in the preseason . The right footer then signed a contract that ran until 2018 and was part of the regular team right away. It was used 25 times in the 2014/15 season and scored one goal.

Basel

The performance of the young Akanji aroused the interest of the Basel sports director Georg Heitz . He contacted FC Winterthur with the aim of removing him from the current contract. On April 15, 2015, Akanji finally signed a three-year contract with FC Basel , valid from July 1, 2015 and the option to extend it for a further year. He made his Super League debut on September 26, 2015 in a 3-1 home win against FC Lugano . In March 2016, the central defender suffered a cruciate ligament tear in his left knee during training and was out for the rest of the season. Under coach Urs Fischer , he won the championship title with FCB at the end of the 2015/16 Swiss Football Championship . In the 2016/17 season Akanji became a regular player in central defense and won the championship again with the club. For the club it was the eighth title in a row and the 20th title in the club's history. With Akanji, the team also won the national cup competition on May 25, 2017 3-0 against FC Sion and thus the double .

Borussia Dortmund

On January 15, 2018, the Swiss Borussia Dortmund joined and received a contract valid until 2022. He scored his first goal in the Bundesliga in the 7-0 home win of BVB against 1. FC Nürnberg on September 26, 2018 (5th matchday). In his first season, the central defender played 31 competitive games for the eventual runner-up as a regular player and missed another 14 due to a hip injury.

Akanji won his first title with the club in August 2019 when the double winner of the previous season, FC Bayern Munich , was defeated 2-0 in the DFL Supercup . After he was still in central defense under Lucien Favre , he briefly lost his regular place to Dan-Axel Zagadou on matchday 21 of the 2019/20 season , but was called back to the starting eleven after his injury by his compatriot Lucien Favre. At the end of the season, the Swiss fell out with muscular problems, and in his absence BVB was runner-up again.

National team

Akanji, who had already been in the Swiss U20 squad, made his debut in the U21s on November 18, 2014 with a partial appearance in a friendly match. For the World Cup qualifier against the Faroe Islands on June 9, 2017, the U21 player was invited to the Swiss national team for the first time and made his international debut in its 2-0 win. Since this appearance in a competitive match for the Swiss national team, he is only eligible to play for Switzerland and no longer for Nigeria, whose citizenship he also has.

Akanji was in the 2018 World Cup in Russia in the squad of Switzerland , studied there until retirement in second round against Sweden all games. In the 2018/19 UEFA Nations League , the defender and Switzerland made it to the finals , finishing fourth after beating England 5-6 on penalties .

titles and achievements

Borussia Dortmund

FC Basel

Private

Akanji is the son of a Swiss woman from Oberwinterthur and a Nigerian . He has two older sisters, including soccer player and politician Sarah Akanji . After leaving school, he completed a commercial apprenticeship, which he completed in 2017. In the summer of 2019, the Swiss-Nigerian dual citizen married his fiancée Melanie. Akanji has been a brand ambassador and blogger for the Swiss news portal watson.ch since November 2019 . In his football blog “Akanjis Revier”, topics outside the field should also be discussed.

literature

Web links

Commons : Manuel Akanji  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manuel Akanji , Internationales Sportarchiv 24/2018 from June 12, 2018, in the Munzinger archive , accessed on November 12, 2018 ( beginning of article freely available)
  2. ↑ a b The lightning-fast ascent? in the Landbote of August 30, 2015
  3. ↑ A new defender for FCB: Manuel Akanji comes from FC Winterthur TagesWoche on April 15, 2015
  4. ↑ a b FC Basel signed Manuel Akanji on fcb.ch on April 15, 2015
  5. ↑ FC Basel: Akanji is injured until the end of the season . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . March 5, 2016, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed June 6, 2017]).
  6. ↑ Casper Marti: It is done! FCB are champions for the 19th time . FC Basel 1893. 2016. Accessed April 30, 2016.
  7. ↑ Caspar Marti: 2-1 victory in Lucerne - FCB are Swiss champions! . FC Basel 1893. 2017. Accessed April 28, 2017.
  8. ↑ Caspar Marti: FCB defeated Sion in the cup final! . FC Basel 1893. 2017. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
  9. ^ A b Libardoni Norman: Swiss Football Association - Petkovic nominates Manuel Akanji for the first time. Retrieved June 6, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co KGaA: BVB sign Swiss national player Manuel Akanji. Retrieved January 15, 2018 (German).
  11. ↑ 7: 0 - BVB-Express rolls over the club , match report on kicker.de, accessed on September 30, 2018.
  12. ↑ Dortmund wins Supercup against Bayern Munich , spiegel.de, accessed on August 3, 2019
  13. ↑ Note in: Willkommen, Manuel Akanji, in: Borussia - Das Memberermagazin, issue 137 of January 27, 2018, p. 10 ff.
  14. ↑ First Götze, now Akanji: BVB player in wedding fever, ruhrnachrichten.de, accessed on June 24, 2019
  15. ↑ Manuel Akanji is the new brand ambassador. In: Persoenlich.com , November 8, 2019.
  16. ↑ Blog «Akanjis Revier» at watson.ch
personal data
SURNAME Akanji, Manuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Akanji, Manuel Obafemi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1995
PLACE OF BIRTH Neftenbach