Christian Michael Kouamé Kouakou (born 6 December 1997) is an Ivorian 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

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

or winger for

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fo ...

and the Ivory Coast national team.

Club career

Kouamé started playing football on the streets of

Bingerville Bingerville is a town in south-eastern Ivory Coast. It is a suburb of Abidjan and is one of four sub-prefectures of Abidjan Autonomous District. Bingerville is also a commune. The town is located about 10 kilometres east of Abidjan and lies on th ...

, a suburb of

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...

, Ivory Coast. At the age of 16, he moved with other Ivorian teenagers to Italy to participate in trials with several clubs. Eventually he was signed by

Prato Prato ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies in the north east of Tuscany, at the foot of Monte Retaia, elevation , the last peak in the Calvana chain. With more than 200,000 i ...

and as still a minor at that time, grew up with an Italian foster family he is still close with. Kouamé made his professional debut in the

Lega Pro The Serie C () is the third-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie B and Serie A. The Lega Italiana Calcio Professionistico (Lega Pro) is the governing body that runs the Serie C. The unification of the Lega Pro ...

for

on 6 September 2015 in a game against

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

. On 13 July 2018, Kouamé signed with

side

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

. On 31 January 2020, he joined

on loan with an obligation to buy.

International career

Kouamé debuted for the Ivory Coast U23s in a pair of

2019 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations qualification The 2019 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations qualification was a men's under-23 football competition, which decided the participating teams of the 2019 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations. Players born 1 January 1997 or later were eligible to participate in the co ...

matches in March 2019. He was called-up for the final tournament in November 2019, suffering a knee injury. He made his debut for the Ivory Coast senior national team on 13 October 2019 in a friendly against DR Congo.

Career statistics

Club

Honours

Fiorentina *

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

runner-up:

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 ...

* UEFA Europa Conference League runner-up:

Ivory Coast U23 *

Africa U-23 Cup of Nations The Total Africa U-23 Cup of Nations (known as the CAF U-23 Championship until 2015) is the main international football competition for CAF nations, played by under 23 years old players. It is held every four years with the top three teams qualif ...

runner-up:

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 ...

References

External links

Profile
at the ACF Fiorentina website * * * 1997 births Footballers from Abidjan Living people Ivorian men's footballers Men's association football forwards Ivory Coast men's international footballers Ivory Coast men's under-20 international footballers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Belgian Pro League players AC Prato players AS Cittadella players Genoa CFC players ACF Fiorentina players R.S.C. Anderlecht players Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Ivory Coast 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players Ivorian expatriate men's footballers Ivorian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Ivorian expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium {{IvoryCoast-footy-bio-stub