Ousmane Camara (born 20 February 2001) is a Guinean 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 Spanish club Castellón and the Guinea national team.

Early life

Camara was born in

Conakry Conakry (; ; sus, Kɔnakiri; N’ko: ߞߐߣߊߞߙߌ߫, Fula: ''Konaakiri'' 𞤑𞤮𞤲𞤢𞥄𞤳𞤭𞤪𞤭) is the capital and largest city of Guinea. A port city, it serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea. Its p ...

, Guinea to poverty as the last of 6 children. He was educated by an uncle 50 km from his parents, who taught him to play football. At the age of 17, he decided to leave the country and went to Mali, then Guinea, before landing in Libya where he was imprisoned for 3 months; there he was beaten and saw inmates get killed. He escaped the prison after a fight between inmates and guards, and reached a refugee camp on the Mediterranean. Earning meals by playing football, he left on a raft to Italy with other refugees. Almost drowning on the voyage, he landed in Italy and hid in a toilet on a train to France. The following year, his talents where noted by Auxerre and he joined their youth academy in 2018.

Club career

In 2019, he was promoted to Auxerre's reserves and signed a professional contract that kept him at the club until 2022. In the 2022–23 season, he was one of the top scorers for Auxerre's reserves in the Championnat National 2. On 27 December 2022, he extended his contract with the club for 2+1 years. He made his professional debut with Auxerre as a late substitute in a 3–2

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 ...

loss to Monaco on 28 December 2022. On 24 January 2024, Camara was loaned to

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions ...

side

Annecy Annecy ( , ; frp, Èneci or ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, south of Geneva, Switzerland. Nicknamed ...

. On 28 August, he moved to Spanish

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

side Castellón.

International career

Camara was called up to the Guinea U23s in November 2022, but withdrew from the selection. He was called up again for a set of

2023 U-23 Africa Cup of Nations qualification This article details the qualification schedule and matches for the 2023 U-23 Africa Cup of Nations. Players born 1 January 2001 or later were eligible to participate in the competition. A total of 8 teams, including automatically qualified host ...

matches in March 2023. Camara made his debut for the senior Guinea national team on 10 June 2024 in a

World Cup qualifier The FIFA World Cup qualification is a competitive match that a national association football team takes in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the (men's) FIFA World Cup. Qualifying tournaments are hel ...

against Mozambique at Ben M'Hamed El Abdi Stadium in El Jadida, Morocco. He substituted Aguibou Camara in the 84th minute of a 1–0 Mozambique victory.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Camara, Ousamen 2001 births Living people Sportspeople from Conakry Prisoners and detainees of Libya Guinean men's footballers Guinea men's youth international footballers Guinea men's international footballers AJ Auxerre players FC Annecy players CD Castellón footballers Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players Championnat National 2 players Championnat National 3 players Men's association football forwards Guinean expatriate men's footballers Guinean expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate men's footballers in France Guinean expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Footballers at the 2024 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Guinea