Brice Lauriche Samba (born 25 April 1994) 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 ...
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 ...
Samba joined Le Havre in 2006, working his way through their youth teams before appearing in the first-team in 2011.
Marseille
On 4 January 2013, Samba joined Marseille from Le Havre, signing a four-and-a-half year contract. He made his professional debut for Marseille on 5 January 2014 in a Coupe de France game against
Reims
Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne.
Founded by ...
keeping a clean sheet in a 2–0 home win. On 9 July 2015, Samba joined Nancy on a season-long loan.
Caen
Samba joined
Caen
Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Marseille on 30 June 2017.
Nottingham Forest
On 7 August 2019, Samba joined
EFL Championship
The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...
side Nottingham Forest on a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee. He was initially brought in as a backup for on loan goalkeeper
Arijanet Muric
Arijanet Anan Muric; cnr, Аријанет Мурић, translit=Arijanet Murić (born 7 November 1998) is a professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Burnley. Born in Switzerland, he represents the Kosovo nation ...
, but earned his place as Forest's number one after Muric made a number of costly mistakes.
Samba made his debut for Forest on 13 August 2019 in a 1–0
EFL Cup
The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...
victory over
Fleetwood Town
Fleetwood Town Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Fleetwood, Lancashire. Established in 1997, the current Fleetwood Town F.C. is the fourth incarnation of the club; it was originally formed in ...
. His league debut came on 24 August 2019 in a 2–1 win against
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
. His impressive performances led him being named the Championship Fans' Player of the Month for November 2019. On 8 September 2020, Samba was included in the PFA Championship Team of the Year for the 2019–20 season.
In the 2022 Championship play-off semi-final, Samba saved three penalties to send Forest through to the final against Huddersfield Town. He subsequently started in the 2022 EFL Championship play-off final before being substituted for
Ethan Horvath
Ethan Shea Horvath (born June 9, 1995) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a goalkeeper for EFL Championship club Luton Town, on loan from Nottingham Forest, and the United States national team.
Early years
Horvath was bo ...
in the 90th minute with a groin injury as Forest held on to a 1–0 lead to confirm their return to the Premier League for first time in 23 years.
Lens
On 5 July 2022, it was announced that Samba had signed a five-year contract with
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 ...
club Lens for an undisclosed fee. In the first half of the
2022–23 Ligue 1
The 2022–23 Ligue 1, also known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is the 85th season of the Ligue 1, France's premier football competition. It began on 5 August 2022 and will conclude on 4 June 2023.
As the 2022 FIFA World Cup began ...
season, he had 9 clean sheets out of 19 games. He ended the season with 15 clean sheets out of 38 league matches, the highest in the season and was awarded the Ligue 1 Goalkeeper of the Year whilst being named in the UNFP Ligue 1
Team of the Year Team of the Year may refer to:
*BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award
*Canadian Press Team of the Year Award
*GPA Gaelic Team of the Year
*IRB International Sevens Team of the Year
*IRB International Team of the Year
*J.League Team of the Y ...
. He conceded the least goals (29 goals) in the league helping Lens to place second with 84 points, one point behind league winners Paris Saint-Germain and secure a champions league spot for the first time in 20 years since 2002–03 season and the third time in the club's history.
International career
Born in the
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa to the w ...
, Samba holds both Congolese and
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying
The UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying tournament is an upcoming Association football, football competition that will be played from March 2023 to March 2024 to determine the 23 UEFA member men's national teams that will join the automatically qualified ...
matches against the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland.
On 16 June 2023, he made his debut playing the whole game in a
UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying
The UEFA Euro 2024 qualifying tournament is an upcoming Association football, football competition that will be played from March 2023 to March 2024 to determine the 23 UEFA member men's national teams that will join the automatically qualified ...
match against
Gibraltar
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, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
.
Career statistics
Club
International
Honours
Nottingham Forest
*
EFL Championship play-offs
The English Football League Championship play-offs are a series of play-off matches contested by the association football teams finishing from third to sixth in the EFL Championship table and are part of the English Football League play-offs. , t ...
:
2022
File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...
Individual
*PFA Championship Fans Player of the Month: November 2019
*
PFA Team of the Year
The Professional Footballers' Association Team of the Year (often called the PFA Team of the Year, or simply the Team of the Year) is an annual award given to a set of 55 footballers across the top four tiers of men's English football; the Premie ...
:
2019–20 EFL Championship
The 2019–20 EFL Championship (referred to as the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship reasons) was the 16th season of the Football League Championship under its current title and the 28th season under its current league division format. Leeds ...
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 ...
Team of the Year Team of the Year may refer to:
*BBC Sports Personality of the Year Team Award
*Canadian Press Team of the Year Award
*GPA Gaelic Team of the Year
*IRB International Sevens Team of the Year
*IRB International Team of the Year
*J.League Team of the Y ...