Valentin Adama Diomande (born 14 February 1990) is a Norwegian 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 currently plays as a striker for

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BMO ...

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

. He has previously played for

Lyn Ubisoft Montpellier is a French video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Castelnau-le-Lez. Founded in 1994 as Ubi Pictures, it is best known for developing the ''Rayman'' and ''Beyond Good & Evil'' series. At 350 employees as of Se ...

Skeid Skeid is a Norwegian alliance sports club from Nordre Åsen, Oslo. It has sections for association football (one for elite and one for grassroots football), Nordic skiing and bandy. General history The club was founded as ''IK Skeid'' on 5 De ...

, Hødd,

Strømsgodset Strømsgodset is a former municipality in Vestfold county (from 1964 Buskerud county), Norway, today a part of the city of Drammen. History Strømsgodset was originally a small rural annex to the city parish of Bragernes (Drammen). But since th ...

, Dinamo Minsk, Stabæk,

Hull City Hull City Association Football Club is a professional Association football, football club based in Kingston upon Hull, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving ...

Los Angeles FC Los Angeles Football Club, commonly referred to as LAFC, is an American professional Association football team based in Los Angeles. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The club ...

Cangzhou Mighty Lions Cangzhou Mighty Lions Football Club () is a professional football club that currently participates in the Chinese Super League under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Cangzhou, Hebei and their home stadium i ...

, Al-Sailiya,

Al-Arabi Al-Arabi may refer to: Companies *Al-Arabi Group, a holding company in the Kuwait Stock Exchange#Services *Al Arabi Investment Group (AB Invest), a subsidiary of Arab Bank *Al Arabi Investment Group Company, a subsidiary of Arab Bank Media *'' A ...

, and

Odd Odd means unpaired, occasional, strange or unusual, or a person who is viewed as eccentric. Odd may also refer to: Acronym * ODD (Text Encoding Initiative) ("One Document Does it all"), an abstracted literate-programming format for describing X ...

Early life

Diomande was born in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

to parents from the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

. He played youth football for the clubs

Holmlia Holmlia is a neighborhood in Oslo, Norway with around 12,000 residents. It is located in the south-western part of Søndre Nordstrand, the southernmost borough in Oslo. The neighborhood is served by Holmlia Station on the Østfold Line, which ...

Vålerenga Vålerenga () is a neighbourhood in the city of Oslo, Norway, belonging to the borough of Gamle Oslo. Vålerenga is located between the neighbourhoods of Gamlebyen, Jordal, Ensjø, Etterstad and Lodalen. Vålerenga is in particular known for it ...

, and

. He has attended the sport secondary school Norges Toppidrettsgymnas, like most of Lyn's young players. He initially studied sports science at Ulsrud High School.

Career

Diomande made his senior debut on 19 October 2008 against

Hamarkameratene Hamarkameratene (literally ''the Hamar Comrades''), often abbreviated to HamKam or Ham-Kam, is a Norwegian football club based in the town of Hamar. The club was founded in 1918, originally under the name Freidig. HamKam were most recently pr ...

, as a substitute in the 86th minute. He played one more game in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and one in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. Ahead of the 2010 season he joined

. On 26 March 2015, Diomande signed a 2.5-year contract with Stabæk. Playing for head coach Bob Bradley in 2015, Diomande had his most productive season to date, scoring 25 goals in 26 appearances. On 1 September 2015, Diomande joined English club

of the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

for a fee of £1.7 million. Because of injury, he had to wait until 12 December 2015 to make his debut when he came off the bench as a 77th-minute replacement for

Chuba Akpom Chuba Amechi Akpom (born 9 October 1995) is a professional footballer who plays as a striker for EFL Championship club Middlesbrough. Akpom began his career at Arsenal, making his senior debut in 2013. Whilst at Arsenal, he had loan periods wi ...

, in a 1–0 home win against

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

. Diomande made his Premier League debut on 13 August 2016, scoring a spectacular overhead kick in a shock 2–1 defeat of reigning champions

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

. On 1 May 2018, Diomande signed with

club

, reuniting him with Bradley in his first season at LAFC. Diomande made an immediate impact, scoring nine goals in his first seven league contests and being named MLS Player of the Month in his first full month on the squad. On August 13, 2020, Diomande released a statement on Twitter that he was terminating his contract with LAFC "with immediate effect" for family reasons. On 2 April 2021, Diomande joined Chinese club

. On 8 August 2021, Diomande joined Qatari club Al-Sailiya. In January 2023, he joined

. Diomande made his debut for the club starting in a 3-2 loss at

DC United D.C. United is a professional soccer club based in Washington, D.C. that competes in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer, the top tier of American soccer. Domestically, the club has won four MLS Cups (league championships), four Su ...

in the season opener on February 25, 2023.

International career

Diomande received his first international call-up to the senior team in June 2015, making his debut for the senior team on 12 June when he came on as a substitute for Joshua King in the 79th minute of a goalless

UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying The UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying tournament was a football competition that was played from September 2014 to November 2015 to determine the 23 UEFA member men's national teams joining the automatically qualified host team France in the UEFA Euro 2 ...

draw against

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

Ullevaal Stadion Ullevaal Stadion () is an all-seater football stadium located in Oslo, Norway. It is the home ground of the Norway national football team, and the site of the Norwegian Cup Final. From its opening in 1926 to 2009 it was the home ground of FK ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''As of 10 June 2018.''

International goals

:''Scores and results list Norway's goal tally first.''

Honours

Strømsgodset *

Tippeligaen Eliteserien () is a Norwegian professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Norwegian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

Los Angeles FC *

Supporters' Shield The Supporters' Shield is an annual award given to the Major League Soccer team with the best regular season record, as determined by the MLS points system. The Supporters' Shield has been annually awarded at the MLS Supporters' Summit since 19 ...

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 ...

Individual * MLS Player of the Month: June 2018

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Diomande, Adama 1990 births Living people Footballers from Oslo Norwegian people of Ivorian descent Norwegian footballers Holmlia SK players Lyn Fotball players Skeid Fotball players IL Hødd players Strømsgodset Toppfotball players FC Dinamo Minsk players Hull City A.F.C. players Los Angeles FC players Cangzhou Mighty Lions F.C. players Al-Sailiya SC players Al-Arabi SC (Qatar) players Eliteserien players Norwegian First Division players Premier League players Chinese Super League players Qatar Stars League players Norwegian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Belarus Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in China Expatriate footballers in Qatar Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in Belarus Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in China Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in Qatar Norway international footballers Association football forwards Stabæk Fotball players English Football League players Expatriate soccer players in the United States Major League Soccer players Toronto FC players