Ignatius Ganago (born 16 February 1999) is a Cameroonian 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 ...

for

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

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

and the Cameroon national team.

Club career

Early career

Ganago was part of the EFCB junior academy in Cameroon before joining

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

in 2017.

Nice

Ganago made his professional debut for Nice in a 4–0

win against

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 ...

on 9 September 2017, coming on for

Mario Balotelli Mario Balotelli Barwuah (; ''né'' Barwuah; born 12 August 1990) is an Italian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Swiss Super League club Sion. Balotelli started his professional football career in 2005 at Lumezzane, before ...

in the 74th minute, during which he also scored his first goal for the club.

Lens

On 10 July 2020, Ganago signed for newly promoted Ligue 1 club

Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...

Nantes

On 1 September 2022, the last day of the 2022 summer

transfer window A transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can transfer players from other playing staff into their playing staff. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer win ...

, Ganago moved to Lens' league rivals

on a four-year contract. The transfer fee paid to Lens was reported as €3.5 million excluding bonuses.

International career

Ganago debuted for the senior Cameroon national team in a friendly 0–0 tie with

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

on 12 October 2019. Later that month his club Nice refused to release him for the Under-23 AFCON tournament.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Cameroon *

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internati ...

bronze:

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

References

External links

EFBC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ganago, Ignatius Living people 1999 births Sportspeople from Douala Cameroonian footballers Association football forwards Cameroon international footballers 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players Ligue 1 players Championnat National 2 players OGC Nice players RC Lens players FC Nantes players Cameroonian expatriate footballers Cameroonian expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate footballers in France