Diadie Samassékou (born 11 January 1996) 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 German club 1899 Hoffenheim. He also represents the Mali national team.

Club career

Red Bull Salzburg

In August 2015, Samassékou signed a four-year contract with Red Bull Salzburg, initially joining their farm team

FC Liefering FC Liefering GmbH is an Austrian association football club, originally from Liefering, a section of Salzburg. It currently plays in the Second League, the second tier of Austrian football. Since 2012, Liefering has been a reserve team for ...

. During the 2017–18 season Salzburg had their best ever European campaign. They finished top of their Europa League group, for a record fourth time, before beating

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D., more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad (; ''Royal Society''), La Real in Spanish, Erreala in Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Basque Country, founded on 7 Septem ...

and

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional footb ...

thus making their first ever appearance in the UEFA Europa League semi-final. On 3 May 2018, he played in the Europa League semi-finals as

Olympique de Marseille Olympique de Marseille (, ; oc, Olimpic de Marselha, ), also known simply as Marseille or by the abbreviation OM (, ), is a French professional men's football club based in Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Founded in 1899, the club pl ...

played out a 1–2 away loss but a 3–2 aggregate win to secure a place in the

2018 UEFA Europa League Final The 2018 UEFA Europa League Final was the final match of the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League, the 47th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 9th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Euro ...

Hoffenheim

On 15 August 2019,

Hoffenheim Hoffenheim () is a village in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It belongs to the municipality of Sinsheim and, as of 2020, it has a population of 3,191. History The village, settled since prehistoric times, and first mentioned ...

announced the signing of Samassékou on a five-year deal.

International career

Samassékou represented Mali at youth level at the

2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the twentieth edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. The competition took place for the first time in New Zealand, the third time on Oceanian soil after ...

and the

2016 Toulon Tournament The 2016 Toulon Tournament was the 44th edition of the Toulon Tournament. It took place 18–29 May 2016. The tournament was used by several teams as preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The tournament was won by England. Participants ;AFC ...

. He made his debut for the senior team in a 3–1 friendly win against

China PR China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

on 29 June 2014.

Career statistics

Club

International

International goals

:''Scores and results list Mali's goal tally first.''

Honours

Club

Red Bull Salzburg *

Austrian Bundesliga The Austrian Football Bundesliga (german: Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, italic=no , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. Th ...

2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19 *

Austrian Cup The Austrian Cup (german: ÖFB-Cup), known as UNIQA ÖFB Cup for sponsorship purposes, is an annual football competition held by the Austrian Football Association, the ÖFB. During the 2008–09 season, Austria Wien won the tournament for 27th t ...

: 2016–17, 2018–19

Individual

* Austrian Bundesliga Team of the Year: 2017–18, 2018–19 *

UEFA 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 ...

Squad of the Season: 2017–18

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Samassekou, Diadie 1996 births Living people Malian men's footballers Malian expatriate men's footballers Mali men's international footballers Mali men's under-20 international footballers Austrian Football Bundesliga players 2. Liga (Austria) players Bundesliga players Super League Greece players Men's association football midfielders FC Liefering players FC Red Bull Salzburg players TSG 1899 Hoffenheim players Olympiacos F.C. players Malian expatriate sportspeople in Austria Expatriate men's footballers in Austria Malian expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany Malian expatriate sportspeople in Greece Expatriate men's footballers in Greece 2019 Africa Cup of Nations players 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players Footballers from Bamako