Randal Kolo Muani (born 5 December 1998) is a French 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 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

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

club

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The team is currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the Germa ...

and the France national team.

Early life

Randal Kolo Muani was born on 5 December 1998 in Bondy,

Seine-Saint-Denis () is a department of France located in the Grand Paris metropolis in the region. In French, it is often referred to colloquially as ' or ' ("ninety-three" or "nine three"), after its official administrative number, 93. Its prefecture is Bobigny ...

. He is of Congolese descent.

Club career

Nantes

Kolo Muani played for various clubs near

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, before moving to

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

' youth academy in 2015. On 4 June 2018, he signed his first professional contract with his youth club Nantes. He made his professional debut in a 3–0

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

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the t ...

on 30 November 2018. In August 2019, Kolo Muani joined

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...

on a season-long loan deal.

Eintracht Frankfurt

On 4 March 2022,

club

signed Kolo Muani on a pre-contract agreement ahead of the expiration of his Nantes contract. He signed a five-year deal with the club. On 26 October 2022, he scored his first

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

goal in a 2–1 win over

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 Franc ...

. On 1 November, he scored the winning goal in a 2–1 away victory over

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional foot ...

, to qualify his club to the

knockout phase A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

for the first time in the Champions League era.

International career

Kolo Muani was a youth international for France. He has previously played matches for his country's under-21 national team. On 15 September 2022, Kolo Muani received his first call-up to the France national team, for two

UEFA Nations League The UEFA Nations League is a biennial international football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The first tournament began in September 2018. The ...

matches. On 16 November 2022, he replaced

Christopher Nkunku Christopher Alan Nkunku (born 14 November 1997) is a French professional footballer who plays as a midfielder or forward for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and the France national team. Nkunku is a graduate of the Paris Saint-Germain Academy and m ...

in France's

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

squad after the latter was forced to withdraw due to injury. On 14 December, Kolo Muani scored his first goal for France, in the semi-final match against

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

, slotting in a deflected shot from

Kylian Mbappé Kylian Mbappé Lottin (born 20 December 1998) is a French professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Paris Saint-Germain and the France national team. Considered one of the best players in the world, he is renowned for his dribb ...

. He also became the third fastest player to score a goal as a substitute in the World Cup, after 44 seconds, only behind

Richard Morales Ríchard Javier Morales Aguirre (born 21 February 1975) is a Uruguayan retired footballer who played as a centre forward. Nicknamed ''Chengue'', he was mostly known for his tremendous physical strength and volatile temperament. He played profe ...

and

Ebbe Sand Ebbe Sand (; born 19 July 1972) is a former professional footballer from Denmark who played as a forward for Brøndby IF in Denmark and FC Schalke 04 in Germany. He was the Bundesliga top scorer in 2001, and won the DFB-Pokal in 2001 and 2002 w ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''France score listed first, score column indicates score after each Kolo Muani goal''

Honours

Nantes *

Coupe de France The Coupe de France, formerly known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and profession ...

: 2021–22 France *

runner-up:

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

References

External links

Profile
at the Eintracht Frankfurt website * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kolo Muani, Randal 1998 births Living people Sportspeople from Bondy Footballers from Seine-Saint-Denis French footballers Association football forwards US Torcy players FC Nantes players US Boulogne players Eintracht Frankfurt players Ligue 1 players Championnat National players Championnat National 2 players Championnat National 3 players France under-21 international footballers Olympic footballers of France France international footballers Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics 2022 FIFA World Cup players French expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Germany French expatriate sportspeople in Germany Black French sportspeople French sportspeople of Democratic Republic of the Congo descent