Luke Mbete-Tabu (born 18 September 2003) is an English 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 defender for Dutch club Den Bosch, on loan from

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

Early life

Luke Mbete was born in Westminster, England to Congolese parents. He has 3 siblings and is a twin. He has a fervent passion for football, and it showed evidently as he partook in football matches during primary school and secondary school. He attended Our Lady of Grace Primary School and St Gregory's Catholic Science College in Harrow, England.

Club career

Born in London, Mbete joined

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

as a child. When they closed their academy in 2016 he joined Manchester City. In November 2020 he started for the City side that defeated Chelsea in the final of the

FA Youth Cup The Football Association Youth Challenge Cup is an English football competition run by The Football Association for under-18 sides. Only those players between the age of 15 and 18 on 31 August of the current season are eligible to take part. It ...

. On 21 September 2021, he made his professional debut when he was named in the starting line up for Manchester City's

EFL Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

tie against Wycombe Wanderers. Mbete was loaned to Huddersfield Town for the 2022–23 season. However, the loan was cut short and on 31 January 2023, he joined

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

on loan for the remainder of the season. On 14 February 2023, he scored his first goal in senior football, scoring the second goal in a 5-0 win over Milton Keynes Dons. On 2 April, Bolton won 4–0 against

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park, ...

in the 2023 EFL Trophy Final He didn't make the match day squad, though still received a medal as he had played in the semi-final.@WildbrookCRE are proud sponsors of Luke Mbete, now a winner of the Papa Johns Trophy with @OfficialBWFC Well done #bwfc @PapaJohnsTrophy
/ref> On 26 August 2023, Mbete moved on a season-long loan to Den Bosch in the Netherlands.

International career

Born in England, Mbete is of Congolese descent. He has represented England at youth level. On 16 September 2022, Mbete received his first call up to the

England U21 The England national under-21 football team, also known as England under-21s or England U21(s), is considered to be the feeder team for the England national football team. This team is for England players aged under 21 at the start of the calen ...

squad. He made his debut as a 90th minute substitute for Taylor Harwood-Bellis during the 2-0 win over Italy in Pescara on 22 September 2022. On 25 March 2023, Mbete made his debut for the England U20 team during a 4-2 win over

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in Marbella.

Career statistics

Honours

;Bolton Wanderers *

EFL Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Le ...

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

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mbete, Luke 2003 births Living people Footballers from Greater London English men's footballers England men's youth international footballers English sportspeople of Democratic Republic of the Congo descent Manchester City F.C. players Huddersfield Town A.F.C. players Bolton Wanderers F.C. players FC Den Bosch players Eerste Divisie players Men's association football defenders Black British sportsmen English Football League players English expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands