Anthony Marie Gerard de Freitas (born 10 May 1994) is a French

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

midfielder 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 ...

for

Swiss Promotion League The Promotion League, named the YAPEAL Promotion League for sponsorship reasons, is the third tier of the Swiss football league system. Eighteen clubs compete in the league, playing each other twice over the course of the season. The champions are ...

side

FC Biel-Bienne Fussballclub Biel-Bienne is a Swiss association football club based in Biel/Bienne. The currently play in the 2. Liga Interregional. Honours Swiss championship *Champions: 1946–47 *Runners-up: 1947–48, 1959–60 Swiss Cup *Runners ...

. A former

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

youth team player, he spent time on loan at Monts d'Or Azergues in the

Championnat de France Amateur The Championnat National 2, commonly known as National 2 and formerly known as Championnat de France Amateur (CFA), is a football league competition. The league serves as the fourth tier of the French football league system behind Ligue 1, Ligue ...

and with Portuguese side Varzim in the

LigaPro The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal 2 SABSEG for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier Prim ...

. He also won two caps for the France under-20 team. He was signed by English club

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

in July 2016 and stayed with the club for one-and-a-half seasons. He joined Swiss club

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city loc ...

in June 2018 and then moved on to Biel-Bienne the following year.

Playing career

Monaco II

As a youth team player with

, he played for the reserve team in the

, featuring five times in

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

as Monaco II finished 12th, 17 times in the 2013–14 season as they finished in eighth place, and scoring one goal in 16 games in the 2014–15 campaign to help the club to a ninth-place finish. He also played one game on loan at Monts d'Or Azergues on 19 December 2015, scoring 19 minutes after entering the game as a substitute in a 2–2 draw with GF38. He then was loaned out to Portuguese side Varzim in the

. He made his professional debut on 31 January 2016, in a 1–1 draw with

Penafiel Penafiel ( or () is a municipality and former bishopric (now a Latin Catholic titular see) in the northern Portuguese district of Porto. Capital of the Tâmega Subregion, the population was 72,265 in 2011, in an area of . History The region ...

at the

Estádio do Varzim SC Estádio do Varzim Sport Club is a multi-use stadium in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal. It is used mostly for Association football, football matches, and is the home stadium of Varzim S.C., Varzim Sport Clube. Able to hold 7,000 people, it was built i ...

. He played a total of 19 games for the club, and scored his first goal in professional football on 8 May, in a 2–0 win over

Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

. Capucho led Varzim to a ninth-place finish in the league.

Port Vale

De Freitas signed a two-year contract with

EFL League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

club

in July 2016. Manager

Bruno Ribeiro Bruno Miguel Fernandes Ribeiro (born 22 October 1975) is a Portuguese football manager and former player who is now the head coach at Campeonato de Portugal club Moura. A midfielder with a powerful left-foot strike, he began his playing ca ...

compared de Freitas to himself as a player, and said his versatility made him a key player for the "Valiants". He remained a part of the first team after Michael Brown succeeded Ribeiro as manager in December, before being sidelined for six weeks with a groin injury picked up in February. With the "Valiants" now in

EFL League Two The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Lea ...

, he made 13 appearances in the first half of the 2017–18 season, before his contract was ended by mutual consent after meeting with new manager

Neil Aspin Neil Aspin (born 12 April 1965) is an English football manager and former player. A solid defender who could play at centre-back and right-back, he was a good marker and an adept tackler. He made his debut in the English Football League for L ...

in January 2018.

La Chaux-de-Fonds

In June 2018, De Freitas joined

side

. He left the club at the end of the season.

Biel-Bienne

In September 2019 it was confirmed that De Freitas had joined Swiss 1. Liga side

on a contract for the rest of 2019. On 21 November, he extended his contract with the club until the summer 2020.

International career

He was called up to play for the France under-20 team at the

Jeux de la Francophonie The Jeux de la Francophonie (Canadian English: ''Francophonie Games''; British English: ''Francophone Games'') are a combination of artistic and sporting events for the Francophonie, mostly French-speaking nations and former colonies of France, ...

; France did not qualify for the knockout stages after losing 3–0 to

Congo Congo or The Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: * Democratic Republic of the Congo, the larger country to the southeast, capital Kinshasa, formerly known as Zaire, sometimes referred to a ...

in the group stage.

Style of play

Speaking in July 2016, de Freitas described himself as a "fighter". He can play across the midfield, and is also able to play at left-back.

Career statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:de Freitas, Anthony 1994 births Living people Footballers from Lyon Men's association football midfielders Men's association football fullbacks French footballers France men's youth international footballers ASM Clermont Auvergne players AS Monaco FC players GOAL FC players Varzim S.C. players Port Vale F.C. players FC La Chaux-de-Fonds players FC Biel-Bienne players Championnat National 2 players Liga Portugal 2 players English Football League players Swiss Promotion League players French expatriate footballers French expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate footballers in Portugal French expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate footballers in England French expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Expatriate footballers in Switzerland