Cheick Oumar Doucouré (born 8 January 2000) is a Malian 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

defensive 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 club

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building * ...

and the Mali national team.

Club career

Lens

Doucouré developed as a youth player at JMG Academy Bamako. He then spent his 2016/17 season with

AS Real Bamako Association Sportive du Real Bamako, commonly referred to as Real Bamako is a Malian football club based in Bamako. They play in the Malian Première Division the top division in Malian football. Their home stadium is Stade Modibo Keïta. Among ...

before moving the following season to

RC Lens Racing Club de Lens (, commonly referred to as RC Lens or simply Lens) is a French professional football club based in the northern city of Lens in the Pas-de-Calais department. Its nickname, ''les sang et or'' (''the blood and gold''), come ...

. Doucouré quickly cemented his place at Lens in the

2018–19 Ligue 2 The 2018–19 Ligue 2 (referred to as the Domino's Ligue 2 for sponsorship reasons) season was the 80th season since its establishment. Teams Team changes Promoted from 2017–18 Championnat National *Red Star *Béziers *Grenoble Relegated f ...

campaign with him playing a total of 34 games across all competitions that season.

Crystal Palace

On 11 July 2022, Doucouré was signed by English club

on a five-year contract. In his first season, he was named the club's

Player of the Year Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year (POY) . In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. Association football In association football, this award is he ...

. On 25 November 2023, Doucouré sustained an Achilles injury in a 2–1 loss to

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...

, likely ruling him out for the rest of the 2023–24 season. On 28 February 2024, he extended his contract with Palace until 2029.

International career

In October 2018, Doucouré received his first call-up to the Mali national team. He made his debut for Mali in a 1–0

2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches were organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to decide the participating teams of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, the 32nd edition of the international men's football champion ...

win over

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

on 17 November 2018.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Individual *

Player of the Season:

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

Profile
at the Crystal Palace F.C. website {{DEFAULTSORT:Doucouré, Cheick 2000 births Living people Footballers from Bamako Men's association football midfielders Malian men's footballers RC Lens players Crystal Palace F.C. players Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Championnat National 2 players Premier League players Mali men's international footballers Mali men's youth international footballers 2019 Africa Cup of Nations players Malian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in England Expatriate men's footballers in France Malian expatriate sportspeople in England Malian expatriate sportspeople in France 21st-century Malian people JMG Academy (Bamako) players