Ryan Mmaee A'Nwambeben Kabir (; born 1 November 1997) is a Moroccan 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

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club

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

. Born in Belgium, he represents

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 ...

internationally. Mmaee began his professional career in 2015 with Standard Liège, making his debut at the age of 17. Disagreements with the club management saw him loaned out to Waasland-Beveren and Danish side AGF. He moved to Cyprus in 2019 joining AEL Limassol. After scoring 17 goals in

2020–21 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 ...

he earned a move to Hungarian champions Ferencváros in July 2021. He spent two seasons with Ferencváros, winning back-to-back league titles and a Magyar Kupa before signing for English side

in July 2023.

Club career

Early life and career

Mmaee was born in

Geraardsbergen Geraardsbergen (; french: Grammont, ) is a city and municipality located in the Denderstreek and in the Flemish Ardennes, the hilly southern part of the Belgian province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Geraardsbergen prop ...

, Belgium to a Cameroonian father Nwambebeg Mmaee, and a Moroccan mother Fatima. After his birth, his family moved to

Sint-Pieters-Leeuw Sint-Pieters-Leeuw (; french: Leeuw-Saint-Pierre) is a Dutch-speaking municipality of Belgium located in the province of Flemish Brabant (Flemish Region). The municipality comprises the towns of Oudenaken, Ruisbroek, Sint-Laureins-Berchem, Sint ...

. At school, he studied mathematical sciences at the Royal Athenaeum in Halle. It was in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw that Mmaee began playing football, with the amateur club KV Zuun. A year later, he enrolled in the academy of RWDM Brussels. In 2010, he joined

Gent Gent is a shortened form of the word gentleman. It may also refer to: * Ghent (Dutch: Gent), a Belgian city ** K.A.A. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** K.R.C. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** Gent RFC, a rugby club in Ghent ** .gent, a ...

. Three years later, he joined Standard Liège with his brother Samy Mmaee.

Standard Liège

Mmaee made his

Belgian Pro League The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 team ...

debut on 21 May 2015, at the age of 17 against Gent replacing

Mehdi Carcela Mehdi François Carcela-González ( ar, المهدي كارسيلا; born 1 July 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for the Morocco national team. He began his career in his hometown club Standard Liège, playing 157 g ...

after 82 minutes in a 2–0 away defeat. Mmaee and his brother, Samy signed professional three-year contracts with Standard in August 2015. In the 2015–16 season he made seven appearances as Standard finished in seventh position. After playing in a few matches at the start of 2016–17, Mmaee was dropped from the first team back to the u-23s after he had an argument with manager

Aleksandar Janković Aleksandar Janković (Serbian Cyrillic: Александар Јанковић; born 6 May 1972) is a Serbian football coach and former football player. He is currently manager of the China national under-23 football team. Playing career He playe ...

and an altercation with the physical trainer. Mmaee later explained what happened— "At 19, we want to play every game. When you don't play, you are disappointed, and your reactions are not always appropriate. I was young, I was learning on the job, I made mistakes when, I think, the club did not trust young people enough. I was upset in training because I was not selected in the group, I let it be known, and there were bound to be consequences. I thought it was all going to happen naturally. I was playing with the Belgian national team as a youth, I was upgraded to Standard, I thought it was going to happen so quickly in the professional world. It was not I don't care, but naivety". He briefly returned to the first-team at the end of the season but after signing a contract extension he was loaned out to Waasland-Beveren with an option to buy. Mmaee played in 20 matches in 2017–18, scoring only once as Waasland-Beveren finished in 12th place and they decided against the purchase option and he returned to Standard. On 31 August 2018, Mmaee joined

Danish Superliga The Danish Superliga ( da, Superligaen, ) is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 12 teams each yea ...

side

AGF Aarhus Aarhus Gymnastikforening (; commonly known as AGF ), is a professional sports club based in Aarhus, Jutland, Denmark. Founded in 1880, it is one of the oldest clubs in the country and gymnastics and fencing are featured as its main sports. Howev ...

on loan for the 2018–19 season. He made 12 appearances, scoring three goals all of which came in the Danish Cup. Mmaee stated that he did not enjoy his time in Denmark—"My teammates were nice, but the people in Denmark were quite cold. When we arrived at the club in the morning, we didn't shake hands, and when I was driving and let a pedestrian cross the road, there was no small gesture of thanks."

AEL Limassol

After leaving Standard Liège, Mmaee signed a three-year contract with Cypriot First Division side AEL Limassol on 10 September 2019. He scored eight goals in 24 appearances in 2019–20 until the league was suspended on 15 May 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. In

, Mmaee scored 17 goals as AEL Limassol finished in third place.

Ferencváros

Mmaee signed for Hungarian

Nemzeti Bajnokság I The Nemzeti Bajnokság (, "National Championship"), also known as NB I, is the top level of the Hungarian football league system. The league is officially named OTP Bank Liga after its title sponsor OTP Bank. UEFA currently ranks the league 28th ...

champions Ferencváros in May 2021, linking up with his brother Samy. He scored on his debut for Fradi, on 6 July 2021 in a 3–0 win over Kosovan side

Prishtina Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians and ...

in the

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 ...

first qualifying round. He also scored twice in the next round against Žalgiris. He made his league debut on 31 July 2021, scoring a penalty in a 2–1 defeat to Kisvárda. Ferencváros progressed past Slavia Prague to make it to the Champions League play-off round but they were defeated 6–4 on aggregate by Young Boys, dropping down to the

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. It ...

. They were unable to get out of the group containing Bayer Leverkusen,

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

and

Real Betis Real Betis Balompié, known as Real Betis () or just Betis, is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Founded in 1907, it plays in La Liga. It holds home games at the Estadio Benito Vill ...

, finishing bottom after managing one victory. Mmaee ended the 2021–22 season with 19 goals from 37 matches as Ferencváros won the title with four games left. They won a double after beating Paks 3–0 in the Magyar Kupa final. In

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 ...

Mmaee scored 12 goals in 31 appearances as Ferencváros again won the league title.

Stoke City

On 28 July 2023, Mmaee joined English

side

for an undisclosed fee on a three-year contract. He scored his first goal for Stoke on 29 August 2023 in a 6–1 win against Rotherham United in the

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 ...

International career

Mmaee is of Cameroonian and Moroccan descent, having a father from Cameroon and a mother from Morocco. As such, he was eligible to represent either Belgium, Cameroon or Morocco at senior level. He made his debut for the senior Morocco national team in a 2–0 win against

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

Personal life

Mmaee's brothers, Samy, Camil and Jack are also a professional footballers. In May 2021 he was involved in a car accident in

Limassol Limassol (; el, Λεμεσός, Lemesós ; tr, Limasol or ) is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the district with the same name. Limassol is the second largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population ...

, Cyprus crashing into a car dealership and had to be extracted from his vehicle by emergency workers.

Career statistics

Club

International

International goals

Honours

Ferencváros *

: 2021–22,

* Magyar Kupa: 2021–22

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mmaee, Ryan 1997 births Living people Moroccan men's footballers Belgian men's footballers Morocco men's international footballers Men's association football forwards Belgium men's youth international footballers Belgium men's under-21 international footballers Black Belgian sportspeople Standard Liège players S.K. Beveren players Aarhus Gymnastikforening players AEL Limassol players Ferencvárosi TC footballers Stoke City F.C. players Belgian Pro League players Danish Superliga players Cypriot First Division players Moroccan expatriate men's footballers Belgian expatriate men's footballers Belgian expatriate sportspeople in Denmark Expatriate men's footballers in Denmark Belgian expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Moroccan expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Expatriate men's footballers in Cyprus Moroccan expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Expatriate men's footballers in Hungary Belgian people of Cameroonian descent Belgian sportspeople of Moroccan descent Moroccan people of Cameroonian descent Sportspeople of Cameroonian descent 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players People from Geraardsbergen Footballers from East Flanders English Football League players