El Hadji Ousmane Dabo (born 8 February 1977) is a French former professional footballer who played 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 ...

. Dabo played for Rennes,

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is ...

Vicenza Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan. Vicenza is a thr ...

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

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 ...

Atalanta Atalanta (; grc-gre, Ἀταλάντη, Atalantē) meaning "equal in weight", is a heroine in Greek mythology. There are two versions of the huntress Atalanta: one from Arcadia (region), Arcadia, whose parents were Iasus and Clymene (mythology ...

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, Manchester City and

New England Revolution The New England Revolution is an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having compe ...

. He represented

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

three times at full international level.

Early life

Dabo was born in Laval, Mayenne.

Club career

Early career

Dabo started his career at Rennes, before he and team-mate

Mikaël Silvestre Mikaël Samy Silvestre (born 9 August 1977) is a French former professional footballer who played as a defender. Silvestre began his career at Rennes in 1996, before moving to Italian club Inter Milan in 1998. He joined Manchester United in 19 ...

were signed by

in 1998. Dabo was not a regular first team player for Inter, and a few months later he was loaned out to Vicenza, where he made 13

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 Cop ...

appearances. Dabo spent the following season at Parma under

Arrigo Sacchi Arrigo Sacchi (born 1 April 1946) is an Italian former professional football coach. He has twice managed AC Milan (1987–1991, 1996–1997), with great success. He won the Serie A title in his 1987–88 debut season and then dominated European ...

, making sixteen appearances. In June 2000, Inter stated Silvestre and Dabo were bought for only ₤3 million and sold for ₤30 million. In June 2000 he changed clubs again, returning to the French league with Monaco in an exchange deal involving

Sabri Lamouchi Sabri Lamouchi (born 9 November 1971) is a French football manager and former professional player who played as a midfielder. He was the manager of Qatar Stars League club Al-Duhail. Early life Lamouchi was born in Lyon, France, and is of Tun ...

. Six months later he returned to Vicenza on loan, and in the close season made a permanent move to Atalanta. At the Bergamo club he secured regular first team football, and in 2003 he gained a call-up to the France national team for the FIFA Confederations Cup, which Dabo described as "a surprise".

Lazio

In summer of 2003 Dabo joined

, along with team-mate

Luciano Zauri Luciano Zauri (; born 20 January 1978) is an Italian football coach and a former player who played as a full-back or wide midfielder on either flank. He is in charge as head coach of Serie C club Pescara. Club career Atalanta Zauri made his de ...

, at first a co-ownership deal but raised to a total of €3.225 million and €5.65 million transfer fees after Lazio bought duo remain rights in June 2004. Dabo became an important and popular part of the Lazio midfield due to his organised style of play, making 79 appearances for the club.

Manchester City

After interest from a variety of

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

clubs in 2006, Dabo joined Manchester City on a

Bosman transfer ''Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman'' (1995) C-415/93 (known as the Bosman ruling) is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of associatio ...

, signing a three-year contract. Dabo cited a positive impression of the club arising from a friendly between Manchester City and Lazio at the City of Manchester Stadium as one of his main reasons for joining Manchester City. His debut for the club came in the opening match of the season, a 3–0 Premier League defeat to

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

. On his third City appearance he received a red card for an aerial challenge with

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 ...

's Steve Sidwell, and was suspended for three matches. However, a knee ligament injury sustained in training resulted in a much longer absence, and he did not make another appearance until mid-December. He then had a run of thirteen consecutive appearances, but was sidelined by injury. Upon his return to fitness he struggled to regain his place in the team, making only one further appearance in the 2006–07 season.

Confrontation with Joey Barton

On 1 May 2007, Dabo was assaulted by his team mate

Joey Barton Joseph Anthony Barton (born 2 September 1982) is an English professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He made 269 appearances in the Premier League, including 130 for Manchester City. He is currently the man ...

at City's training ground. Dabo stated that he had been hit several times, and had to go to hospital after suffering injuries to his head during the incident, including a suspected detached

retina The retina (from la, rete "net") is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which then ...

. Dabo requested that the police press charges against Barton, and as a result, on 16 May 2007, Barton was arrested and questioned by

Greater Manchester Police Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 memb ...

. Barton pleaded guilty to the assault. Barton later claimed on 8 April 2011 that, in fact it was Dabo who started the fight, and he was merely defending himself. After Barton signed for

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

on 1 September 2012 on a season-long loan, Dabo questioned the arrival of the Englishman at the Rhone club and called his former teammate a coward for constantly hitting him when he was face down on the floor.

Return to Lazio

He was put on the transfer list by Sven-Göran Eriksson along with team mates

Danny Mills Daniel John Mills (born 18 May 1977) is an English former professional footballer best known for his time at Leeds United. His main position was right-back, though he could also play as a centre-back. On 7 August 2009, he announced his retirem ...

and

Paul Dickov Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

. Mills and Dickov both ended up going out on loans, but Dabo remained at the club. After just playing the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

game on 29 August 2007, he finally re-signed for Lazio on 30 January 2008, cost only €263,000. He signed a contract until 30 June 2010. On 13 May 2009, he scored the winning penalty in a penalty shoot-out to give Lazio a 6–5 win after a 1–1 draw, over Sampdoria in the 2009 Coppa Italia Final.

New England Revolution

After seven months without a club, Dabo signed with Major League Soccer club

on 8 February 2011. He made his MLS debut on 7 May 2011 in a game against the

Colorado Rapids The Colorado Rapids are an American professional soccer club based in the Denver metropolitan area. The Rapids compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. Founded in 1995, as part of the Anschutz Corporation, lat ...

. Dabo retired from football on 18 July 2011 after struggling with injuries throughout the 2011 MLS season.

Honours

Lazio *

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

: 2003–04, 2008–09 * Supercoppa Italiana: 2009 France * FIFA Confederations Cup: 2003

References

External links

*
''archivio.inter.it''

''sslazio.it''
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dabo, Ousmane 1977 births Living people People from Laval, Mayenne Sportspeople from Mayenne French footballers France international footballers Association football midfielders Stade Lavallois players Stade Rennais F.C. players Inter Milan players L.R. Vicenza players Parma Calcio 1913 players AS Monaco FC players Atalanta B.C. players S.S. Lazio players Manchester City F.C. players New England Revolution players Ligue 1 players Serie A players Premier League players Major League Soccer players 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup players FIFA Confederations Cup-winning players French expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Italy Expatriate soccer players in the United States French expatriate sportspeople in England French expatriate sportspeople in Italy French expatriate sportspeople in the United States Black French sportspeople Footballers from Pays de la Loire