Ismaël Kenneth Jordan Koné (born June 16, 2002) is a professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who plays as a

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

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 ...

club

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

. Born in Ivory Coast, he plays for the Canada national team.

Early life

Koné was born in

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. In 2010, he moved to Canada at age 7, growing up in Montreal. Two years later, he began playing youth soccer with the AS Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Panthers. When he was 16, he joined

CS Saint-Laurent Club de Soccer Saint-Laurent is a Canadian semi-professional soccer club based in Saint-Laurent, Quebec that plays in Ligue1 Québec. History Established as a youth soccer club, the club was founded in 1982. As part of their 40th anniversary ...

. With CS Saint-Laurent he earned the bronze medal at the 2019 Canadian Under-17 Championship. He went on trial in Belgium with

Genk Genk () is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality located in the Belgian Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the town of Genk itself. I ...

and

Mouscron Mouscron (; Dutch and vls, Moeskroen, ; Picard and Walloon: ''Moucron'') is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, along the border with the French city of Tourcoing, which is part of the Lille metropoli ...

, but was unable to sign with Mouscron as they did not have the funds available to sign a non-European player. Soon afterwards, he was forced to return to Canada due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, where he began training with CF Montreal U23 and earned an invite to the

first team First team may refer to: Sports * First team (association football), the colloquial name given to the most senior team fielded by a football club * The First Team, the first players known to have played the sport of basketball * First Team All-A ...

's training camp in 2021.

Club career

CF Montréal

After spending a few months training with the

CF Montréal CF Montréal is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montréal, Québec, Canada. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1992 as the Montreal Impact (french: Impact de Montréal, links=no), ...

first team, initially unable to sign a contract due to “some technicalities in MLS rules,” Koné officially signed a two-year contract with two option years on August 13, 2021. However, soon after signing his contract he suffered a knee injury, which limited his participation in training. After the 2021 season, he went to train with Montreal's sister club, Italian

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

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

. Koné made his professional debut and scored his first goal with Montreal in a 3–0 win against

Santos Laguna Club Santos Laguna S.A. de C.V. (), commonly known as Santos Laguna or Santos, is a Mexican professional football club that competes in the Liga MX. It is located in northern Mexico and represents the urban area of La Comarca Lagunera, made up o ...

on February 23, 2022, in the

2022 CONCACAF Champions League The 2022 CONCACAF Champions League (officially the 2022 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League) was the 14th edition of the CONCACAF Champions League under its current name, and overall the 57th edition of the premier football club competition org ...

. During the 2022 summer transfer window,

English 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 En ...

clubs

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

and

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 20 ...

were reported to have approached Montréal over Koné's services.

Watford

In December 2022, English

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

club

announced they had agreed to sign Koné on a transfer from CF Montréal, with the midfielder signing a four-and-a-half year deal. He made his debut on January 7, 2023, starting an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

match against

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

. Kone scored his first goal for Watford in a 3–2 win over

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

on November 28, 2023.

International career

Koné was eligible to play for

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

. In March 2022, Koné was called up to Canada for their final window of

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualificationAlso the "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Qualifiers". was the qualifying process which decided the 31 teams that would join hosts Qatar, who received an automatic spot, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Parallel tour ...

matches. He made his debut on March 24 against

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

, as a substitute for

Jonathan Osorio Jonathan Osorio (born June 12, 1992) is a Canadian professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Major League Soccer club Toronto FC and the Canada national team. He holds the Toronto FC club record for most appearances. Osorio al ...

. Koné scored his first international goal for Canada in a friendly against

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

on November 11, 2022. Two days later on November 13, he was named to Canada's 26-man squad for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international association football, football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022 ...

. He appeared in all three of the team's matches at the World Cup. At the end of the year, Koné was named the men's 2022 Canada Soccer Young Player of the Year. The following year, Koné was awarded again the Canada Soccer Young Player of the Year. In June 2023, Koné was called-up to Canada ahead of the

2023 CONCACAF Nations League Finals 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

Career statistics

Club

International

''Scores and results list Canada's goal tally first.''

Honours

Individual * Canada Soccer Youth Player of the Year: 2022, 2023

References

External links

CF Montreal profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kone, Ismael 2002 births Living people Footballers from Abidjan Canadian men's soccer players Canada men's international soccer players Ivorian men's footballers Ivorian emigrants to Canada Men's association football midfielders CF Montréal players Major League Soccer players 2022 FIFA World Cup players Watford F.C. players English Football League players Canadian expatriate men's soccer players Expatriate men's footballers in England Canadian expatriate sportspeople in England