Tiago Emanuel Embaló Djaló (; 9 April 2000) is a Portuguese 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 for French club

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

mainly as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

but also as a full-back.

Club career

Sporting CP

Djaló was born in Amadora, Lisbon metropolitan area to

Bissau-Guinean Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ) ...

parents, and he joined Sporting CP's academy in 2013 from Sport Futebol Damaiense. On 24 February 2018, still a junior, he made his professional debut in the

LigaPro The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal 2 SABSEG for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier Prim ...

with their reserves, playing 74 minutes in a 2–2 home draw against Académica de Coimbra. On 11 April 2018, Djaló scored his first goal in the second division, closing the 1–1 home draw with Famalicão.

Milan

In January 2019, Djaló was signed by A.C. Milan as his contract with Sporting was about to expire. In July, alongside several other youth team players, he was invited to train with the first team by the newly appointed coach

Marco Giampaolo Marco Giampaolo (; born 2 August 1967) is an Italian coach (sport), manager, and former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Midfielder (association football), midfielder. He was most recently the head coach of Serie A cl ...

. He appeared in his only match for the club in a

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

with

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

, coming on as a second-half substitute.

Lille

Djaló joined

on 1 August 2019 on a five-year deal, for an undisclosed fee reported to be within the area of €5 million. He made his debut in the French

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 ...

ten days later, starting in central defence alongside his compatriot José Fonte in the 2–1 home victory over

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 ...

. He first appeared 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 ...

on 23 October, featuring 87 minutes in a 1–1 draw against

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...

in the group stage also at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy. In the 2020–21 season, Djaló contributed 17 games to help his team win the national championship for the first time since

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. On 1 August, he started as Lille won the Trophée des Champions 1–0 against Paris Saint-Germain at

Bloomfield Stadium Bloomfield Stadium ( he, אצטדיון בלומפילד) is a football stadium in Tel Aviv, Israel, with a capacity of 29,400. It is the home stadium of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv. The stadium also serves the ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

, Israel. He scored his first league goal on 6 November that year, opening an eventual 1–1 home draw with Angers.

International career

Djaló won 24 caps for Portugal at youth level. His first for the under-21 side occurred on 14 November 2019, in a 0–0 friendly draw against

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

held in Estoril. On 21 March 2022, Djaló received his first call-up to the senior squad, after Pepe tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

ahead of the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international association football, football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022 ...

qualification play-offs against

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. In October, he was named in a preliminary 55-man squad for the finals in Qatar.

Honours

Lille *

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 ...

* Trophée des Champions:

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Djalo, Tiago 2000 births Living people People from Amadora Portuguese sportspeople of Bissau-Guinean descent Sportspeople from Lisbon District Black Portuguese sportspeople Portuguese footballers Association football defenders Liga Portugal 2 players Sporting CP B players A.C. Milan players Ligue 1 players Lille OSC players Portugal youth international footballers Portugal under-21 international footballers Portuguese expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Italy Expatriate footballers in France Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Italy Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in France