Ola John (born 19 May 1992) is a 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 ...

who plays for Al-Hazem as a

left winger 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 ...

. Born in Liberia, he has represented the Netherlands national team. A product of

FC Twente Football Club Twente () is a Dutch professional football club from the city of Enschede, sometimes known internationally as Twente Enschede. The club was formed in 1965 by the merger of 1926 Dutch champions Sportclub Enschede with Enschedese ...

's youth system, he played with their first team from 2010 to 2012 before joining

S.L. Benfica Sport Lisboa e Benfica (), commonly known as Benfica, is a professional football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. Founded on 28 February 1904 as ''Sport Lisboa'', Be ...

. Amid a 2014 loan to

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

for half a season, he played regularly at Benfica in the seasons of 2012–13 and 2014–15. Afterwards, he was loaned out to

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

and

Deportivo de La Coruña Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña (), commonly known as Deportivo La Coruña (), Deportivo or simply Dépor, is a professional football club based in the city of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. They currently play in the Primera División RFEF – ...

. After playing only one match with Benfica's reserve team in 2017–18, he moved to Vitória for the upcoming season. Internationally, John gained one cap for the Netherlands national team in 2013.

Club career

Twente

The 2011–12 season was the big breakthrough for John at

Twente Twente ( nl, Twente , Tweants dialect: ''Tweante'') is a region in the eastern Netherlands. It encompasses the most urbanised and easternmost part of the province of Overijssel. Twente is most likely named after the Tuihanti or Tvihanti, a Ge ...

, as he got a starting place from

Co Adriaanse Co Adriaanse (born 21 July 1947) is a Dutch football manager and former player who played as a centre-back. Playing career As a professional player, Adriaanse played for six seasons with (now dissolved) De Volewijckers (from 1964 until 1970) and ...

at the start of the season, and did not lose that even with competition for the left forward position, as

Nacer Chadli Nacer Chadli (born 2 August 1989) is a Belgian professional footballer who currently plays as a winger for Belgian First Division A club K.V.C. Westerlo on loan from Turkish Super Lig club İstanbul Başakşehir and the Belgium national footbal ...

returned from injury. He also topped the UEFA Europa League group stage assist rankings with six assists. In Twente's home match in the Europa League against

Odense BK Odense Boldklub (; also known as Odense BK or the more commonly used OB) is a Danish professional football club based in the city Odense. The club has won three Danish championships and five Danish Cup trophies. OB play in the Danish Superliga ...

on 3 November, John provided all three assists in a 3–2 win. John was influential in the Eredivisie campaign as well, netting two goals in a 6–2 victory over FC Utrecht on 4 December 2011.

Benfica and loans

On 24 May 2012, John signed for Portuguese club Benfica on a five-year deal which included a €45 million release clause for a transfer fee of €9.1 million according to Football Leaks. It was rumored that 80% of the undisclosed went to sports investment company Doyen Sports. After struggling to find his space in the first team during his initial months in Lisbon, John became a regular starter or used substitute in the second half of Benfica's 2012–13 campaign, which included appearances in

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. ...

and Portuguese Cup finals. He was loaned to

for the remainder of the 2013–14 season on 17 January 2014. He stayed at Benfica for the new season, scoring his first league goal on 12 September 2014 against Vitória Sétubal. On 5 October, he gave two assists in a 4–0 home win against Arouca in Portuguese league. On 29 May 2015, John scored the winning goal against Marítimo (2–1) in the league cup final. On 1 September 2015, John was loaned out to Football League Championship side

for one season. Reading had an option to sign him on a permanent deal at the end of the loan spell. He scored his first goal for Reading in the home match against

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. Th ...

on 3 November 2015. On 22 August 2016, John returned to the Championship, to join

on a season-long loan. After an injury-ridden loan spell at Wolves, limiting his game time to a total of 71 minutes in all competitions, his loan was cut short on 13 January 2017 and he instead joined

on loan until the end of the season. In August 2017, it was reported that Ola John refused to be loaned to Panathinaikos and to Qarabağ.

Vitória de Guimarães

On 21 July 2018, John signed a three-year contract with

Vitória S.C. Vitória Sport Clube, commonly known as Vitória de Guimarães, is a Portuguese professional football club based in Guimarães that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top-flight of football in Portugal. Vitória de Guimarães have finished t ...

in Primeira Liga.

International career

In February 2012, John was called up for the first time by

Bert van Marwijk Lambertus van Marwijk (; born 19 May 1952) is a Dutch football manager who was recently the head coach of the United Arab Emirates national team. As a player, he played for the Go Ahead Eagles, AZ, MVV and Fortuna Sittard amongst other club ...

to represent the senior Netherlands football team for the game against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

. On 7 May 2012, he was named in the provisional list of 36 players for the

UEFA Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th UEFA European Championship, European Championship for List of men's national association football teams#UEFA (Europe), men's ...

tournament, one of nine uncapped players to be chosen by Netherlands manager Bert van Marwijk as part of the preliminary squad.

Personal life

As a two-year-old, John fled with his mother and brothers from Liberia to the Netherlands. His father was killed during the First Liberian Civil War. He did not return to the African continent until the U-17 World Championship in Nigeria in 2009. As a child, he played at the amateur club VV DES in

Nijverdal Nijverdal () is a town of approximately 25,000 inhabitants in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is the commercial centre of the municipality Hellendoorn. Nijverdal (which means ''Industrious Valley'') was founded in 1836 on the territory of ...

. Like his brothers Collins and Paddy, Ola joined the youth academy of Twente.

Career statistics

Honours

Twente * KNVB Cup:

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

Johan Cruijff Shield The Johan Cruyff Shield (, ) is a football trophy in the Netherlands named after Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff, also often referred to as the Dutch Super Cup. The winner is decided in one match only, played by the winner of the national footbal ...

: 2011 Benfica * Primeira Liga: 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16 *

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; "Cup of Portugal") is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Placard since the 2015–16 sea ...

: 2013–14 * Taça da Liga: 2013–14, 2014–15 *

Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira The Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (; English: Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, or simply Portuguese Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese football match played since 1979 between the winners of the Portuguese League (Primeira Liga) and Portuguese ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

runner-up:

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:John, Ola 1992 births Living people People from Grand Gedeh County Association football wingers Dutch footballers Netherlands under-21 international footballers Netherlands youth international footballers Netherlands international footballers Dutch people of Liberian descent Sportspeople of Liberian descent Liberian emigrants to the Netherlands Naturalised citizens of the Netherlands FC Twente players S.L. Benfica footballers Hamburger SV players Reading F.C. players Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players Deportivo de La Coruña players S.L. Benfica B players Vitória S.C. players RKC Waalwijk players Al-Hazem F.C. players Eredivisie players Primeira Liga players Bundesliga players English Football League players La Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Saudi Professional League players Saudi First Division League players Dutch expatriate footballers Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Germany Dutch expatriate sportspeople in England Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Spain Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Saudi Arabia Expatriate footballers in Portugal Expatriate footballers in Germany Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Spain Expatriate footballers in Saudi Arabia