Adam Mohamed Ounas ( ar, آدم أوناس; born 11 November 1996) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

right winger A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As #Cent ...

for club

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

. Born in France, he plays for the Algeria national team.

Club career

Early career

Ounas was four years old when he joined the local club

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

encouraged by his father, a former goalkeeper, Hadji Ounas. He played for Tours for ten years before joining the U14 youth team of

Châteauroux Châteauroux (; ; oc, Chasteurós) is the capital city of the French department of Indre, central France and the second-largest town in the province of Berry, after Bourges. Its residents are called ''Castelroussins'' () in French. Climate Ch ...

. One year later, due to juvenile mistakes, he left Châteauroux and played for a small local club, Football Club Ouest Tourangeau 37, where Arnaud Vaillant, scout for

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

and

Yannick Stopyra Yannick Stopyra (born 9 January 1961) is a French former footballer who played as a striker. He amassed Ligue 1 totals of 455 matches and 130 goals in representation of six teams, mainly Sochaux and Toulouse, in a 17-year professional career. ...

discovered him.

Bordeaux

In April 2013, Ounas joined Bordeaux on a one-year contract and in April 2014, he signed a two-year trainee contract. Ounas made his first-team debut for Bordeaux on 4 October 2015, being introduced in the 72nd minute and scoring the last goal in his club's 3–2 defeat away to

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

. He started in the following match against

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

, before being substituted in the 59th minute, and was introduced in the 77th minute of Bordeaux's 0–1 defeat to

Sion Sion may refer to * an alternative transliteration of Zion People * Sion (name) or Siôn, a Welsh and other given name and surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Shion or Sion, a Japanese given name Plac ...

in the Europa League on 22 October. On 25 October, Ounas scored his second

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. A ...

goal 11 minutes after having come on in the 67th minute, helping his club to a 1–0 win over

Troyes AC Espérance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne (ESTAC), commonly known as Troyes, is a French association football club, based in Troyes, who play in Ligue 1, the highest level of France's football league system, and plays its home matches at the ...

. In December, Bordeaux rewarded him with a professional contract running until June 2019.

Napoli

On 3 July 2017,

Napoli Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

confirmed the signing of Ounas from Bordeaux. He scored his first goal for the club in a 1–3 loss to

RB Leipzig RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V. (), commonly known as RB Leipzig, and colloquially referred to as Red Bull Leipzig, is a German professional football club based in Leipzig, Saxony. The club was founded in 2009 by the initiative of the company Red Bu ...

in the

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

1st knockout round first leg.

Loan to Nice

On 30 August 2019, Ounas moved to

side

OGC Nice Olympique Gymnaste Club Nice Côte d'Azur (), commonly referred to as OGC Nice or simply Nice, is a French professional football club based in Nice. The club was founded in 1904 and currently plays in Ligue 1, the top tier of French football. ...

, on a loan deal with a purchase option. On 6 May 2020, Nice decided not to trigger the purchase option and Ounas returned to Napoli.

Loan to Cagliari

On 6 October 2020, Ounas joined

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

side

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

on a season-long loan with an option to buy. On 28 January 2021, Ounas parted ways with Cagliari due to lack of playing time.

Loan to Crotone

On 1 February 2021, Ounas joined Italian club

Crotone Crotone (, ; nap, label= Crotonese, Cutrone or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Calabria, Italy. Founded as the Achaean colony of Kroton ( grc, Κρότων or ; la, Crotona) in Magna Graecia, it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until ...

on a loan deal. He scored his first goal for the club on 14 February in a 2–1 home loss to

Sassuolo Sassuolo (; egl, label=Modenese dialect, Modenese, Sasól ) is an Italian town, ''comune'', and industrial centre of the Province of Modena in Emilia-Romagna. Standing on the right bank of the river Secchia some southwest of Modena, the town ...

. His second marker came against

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

on 7 March; following the match, he became the target of

cyber racism Racist rhetoric is distributed through computer-mediated means and includes some or all of the following characteristics: ideas of racial uniqueness, racist attitudes towards specific social categories, racist stereotypes, hate-speech, nationalis ...

, allegedly from Torino fans, which included direct messages on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

, of which he published screenshots, calling him a "monkey", telling him to "return to Africa", and even hoping for his death.

Lille

On 1 September 2022, Ounas signed with

for two seasons, with an option for a third season.

International career

Born in France to Algerian parents, Ounas is eligible to represent both countries internationally because he holds both nationality. After initially playing for the France under-20 team, he opted to change his allegiance to Algeria in October 2016. Shortly after the switch, Ounas was called up to the Algeria national team for the first time for a 2018 World Cup qualifier against Nigeria. Ounas made his debut for the senior Algeria in a 1–0

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations to decide 31 of the 32 teams which would play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with Russia qualifying automatically as hosts. All 210 ...

loss to

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

on 5 September 2017. Ounas opened his scoring record For Algeria on 1 July 2019, scoring twice against

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

in a 3–0 victory in the

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internati ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Algeria's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Ounas goal.''

Honours

Algeria *

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Napoli *

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ounas, Adam 1996 births People from Chambray-lès-Tours Footballers from Indre-et-Loire Living people Algerian men's footballers Algeria men's international footballers French men's footballers France men's youth international footballers French sportspeople of Algerian descent Men's association football midfielders Ligue 1 players Serie A players 2019 Africa Cup of Nations players FC Girondins de Bordeaux players SSC Napoli players OGC Nice players Cagliari Calcio players FC Crotone players Lille OSC players Algerian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Algerian expatriate sportspeople in Italy