Alieu Darbo (born 3 August 1992) 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

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 ...

or winger. Born in Sweden to Gambian parents, he has represented Gambia at the international youth level. He appeared as an unused substitute for Gambia national football team once in 2012.

Club career

Darbo started his career in Sweden, then moved to France with Le Mans FC. He was the member of their under-19 team in 2010.

England, Croatia and Finland

Darbo went on trial with

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

and

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

in 2012, and signed a three-year contract with

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

in June 2012. This was later refuted by the club. Vital Football even reported the signing was made up by the footballer himself. In August 2013 Darbo signed for Croatian side

GNK Dinamo Zagreb Građanski nogometni klub Dinamo Zagreb ( en, Dinamo Zagreb Citizens' Football Club, link=yes, italics=yes), commonly referred to as GNK Dinamo Zagreb or simply Dinamo Zagreb (), is a Croatian professional football club based in Zagreb. Dinamo ...

. Despite being injured, he was included in the club's 23 man squad for 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 ...

and given a two-year contract extension in September. He was released in December 2013, having been at Dinamo for just four months, without making any debut for the club. In January 2014 he played once for Inter Turku in the second leg derby against TPS in

2014 Finnish League Cup The 2014 Finnish League Cup will be the 18th season of the Finnish League Cup, Finland's second-most prestigious cup association football, football tournament. FC Lahti are the defending champions, having won their second league cup 2013 Finnish Le ...

group stage.

Italy, Sweden, Norway

On 12 July 2014 Italian club

F.C. Crotone Football Club Crotone S.r.l., commonly referred to as Crotone, is an Italian football club based in Crotone, Calabria. They play in the third division of Italian football, the Serie C. Founded in 20 settembre 1910, it holds its home games at Stadi ...

announced the signing of Darbo. However, the contract was terminated on 19 July after the club announced there was some miscommunication with his agent. Later in July 2014 he was presented as a player of Swedish second-tier side Landskrona BoIS. The deal soon collapsed. In January 2015 he was presented as a player for Norwegian club Nybergsund. However, this deal, too, soon collapsed.

Malta, Algeria, Egypt, Malta again & Tunisia

In February 2015, he signed a three-month contract with Maltese Premier League side

Mosta FC Mosta Football Club is a Maltese football club from the town of Mosta. The team played four seasons in Malta's highest league 1974–75, 1987–88, 2002–03 and 2005–06. They achieved promotion to the Maltese Premier League again in 2010–11 ...

. Darbo made his debut for the club in a 3–1

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

loss against

Valletta Valletta (, mt, il-Belt Valletta, ) is an Local councils of Malta, administrative unit and capital city, capital of Malta. Located on the Malta (island), main island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, i ...

, being replaced after 71 minutes. In June 2015, Darbo signed a two-year contract with Algerian club

MC Oran ( ar, نادي مولودية وهران), known as , commonly referred to as MC Oran for short, is a football club based in Oran, Algeria. Founded on 1 January 1917 and formed again on 14 May 1946, the club was known as Mouloudia Chaâbia Ouah ...

. In January 2016 he moved to Egypt for Ittihad Alexandria. He made his debut on 6 February against Wadi Degla (3–1 loss). He was released after four months, after he had featured only sporadically for the club in the 2015–16 season. In the summer of 2016 he moved back to Malta for

Maltese First Division The Maltese Challenge League (referred to as the BOV Challenge League for sponsorship reasons) is the second-highest division in Maltese football, behind the Maltese Premier League. The First Division was the precursor of the present Premier L ...

club

Naxxar Lions Naxxar Lions Football Club is a football club from the town of Naxxar in northern Malta Their historical and arch-rivals are Mosta FC. A match between Naxxar Lions and Mosta FC, is known as the derby of the north, but because there are other ...

. He made his debut for the club on 11 September 2016 in a 2–0 loss against

Pietà Hotspurs The Pietà (; meaning "pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form o ...

. He was released by Naxxar Lions in late 2016. Club president Pierre Sciberras said his contract had been terminated for disciplinary reasons, not for playing poorly. He signed a contract with Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1 club CA Bizertin on 23 August 2017. After a couple of weeks, he was released without featuring for the club.

International career

Darbo was part of the

Gambia national under-17 football team The Gambia national under-17 football team is the U-17 football team of the Gambia and is controlled by the Gambia Football Federation. History The team won the Africa U-17 Cup of Nations The U-17 Africa Cup of Nations also called TotalEner ...

that participated in the

2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup The 2009 FIFA U-17 World Cup was the thirteenth tournament of the FIFA U-17 World Cup held in Nigeria from 24 October to 15 November 2009. The tournament was won by Switzerland, beating the host team and holders, Nigeria. The Golden Ball to the Be ...

in Nigeria, where he was assigned the number 10 jersey. He played in all three of his nation's games in the World Cup, losses against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

before a 2–2 draw with

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. In June 2012, at the age of 19, Darbo was included in the matchday squad for the senior national team's 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier against

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

. He was an unused substitute in that game.

References

External links