Timothy Castagne (born 5 December 1995) is a Belgian 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 full-back for

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 ...

club

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

and the Belgium national team. Castagne began his senior career with

Genk Genk () is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the town of Genk itself. It is one of the most important industrial towns in Flanders, located on the Albert Canal, ...

after graduating from the club's

youth academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

and moved to Leicester City in 2020.

Club career

Early career

Born in

Arlon Arlon (; lb, Arel ; nl, Aarlen ; german: Arel ; wa, Årlon; la, Orolaunum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in and capital of the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes, Belgium. With a population of just over 28,000, it is th ...

, Belgian Luxembourg, Castagne began playing football for local clubs US Waltzing and Lorrain Arlon before moving to the youth academy of

Virton Virton (; Gaumais: ''Viertån''; wa, Vierton) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium. It is also the administrative centre of the district (''arrondissement'') of the same name, as well as the pri ...

, the largest club in the province. He practised with the youth teams of

Standard Liège Royal Standard de Liège, commonly referred to as Standard Liège (; nl, Standard Luik ; german: Standard Lüttich ) or simply Standard in Belgium, is a Belgian professional football club based in the city of Liège. They are one of the most ...

after going to a boarding school in the area, but continued to play matches at Virton during the weekend.

Genk

In 2011, Castagne moved to

, after Standard decided not to recruit him permanently. In June 2013, he signed a professional contract for three years at Genk. In January 2014, then Genk coach

Mario Been Marinus Antonius Been (born 11 December 1963) is a Dutch football manager and former professional player. As a footballer, Been played for Feyenoord, Pisa, Roda JC, Heerenveen, FC Tirol Innsbruck and Excelsior. He played in an attacking mid ...

included him in training camp with the first team after leaving a good impression, which meant that he was definitively included in the first team in the second half of the season. He 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 tea ...

debut under new head coach

Alex McLeish Alexander McLeish (born 21 January 1959) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player. He played as a defender for Aberdeen during their 1980s glory years, making nearly 500 League appearances for the club, and won 77 caps for ...

on 14 September 2014 as a starter against Club Brugge. On 2 May 2015, Castagne scored his first senior goal in a 7–1 home win.

Atalanta

In July 2017, he joined

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 ...

club

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 ...

in a €6 million deal, after Andrea Conti had left Atalanta for

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. He scored his first goal for the Bergamo team on 2 January 2018, in

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 ...

win over

Napoli Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

. After a first season of adaptation, his play improved in the first half of the second season, and on 27 August 2018, he scored his first goal in the Serie A in a 3–3 draw against Roma. Alternating with

Hans Hateboer Hans Hateboer (born 9 January 1994) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Atalanta and the Netherlands national team. A Groningen youth product, Hateboer spent three-and-a-half Eredivisie seasons with the club ...

on the right wing-back, he scored 4 goals in the league overall; the others came in the second leg against Roma, and in two important end-of-season victories against

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

(1–3), and

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

(2–1). The following year he continued to alternate with Hateboer, scoring two goals in all competitions: on 22 September 2019, he scored the equalising goal in the 95th minute against

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fol ...

in a 2–2 draw, and the other 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 competi ...

in which he scored the first goal in a 0–3 win against

Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk ( uk, Футбольний клуб «Шахтар» Донецьк , short nickname "miners") is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk. In 2014, due to the War in Donbass, the club was f ...

which allowed the ''Nerazzurri'' to advance to the round of 16. During three years at Atalanta, Castagne made 96 appearances and scored 8 goals in all competitions. His farewell was motivated by a difficult relationship with the coach Gian Piero Gasperini.

Leicester City

On 3 September 2020, Castagne completed a move to

club

on a 5-year deal. On 13 September 2020, he scored his first goal for Leicester City in a 3–0 win over

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...

; hence, he became the fifth Belgian player to score on his Premier League debut, after

Luc Nilis Luc Gilbert Cyrille Nilis (born 25 May 1967) is a Belgian professional football manager and former player who is the head coach of Belgian Division 2 club Belisia Bilzen. He enjoyed a successful career in his native Belgium and, in particular, ...

Thomas Vermaelen Thomas Vermaelen (born 14 November 1985) is a retired Belgian professional footballer who is currently an assistant coach for the Belgium national team. Being left-footed, he usually played as a left-sided centre-back and could play at left-bac ...

Christian Benteke Christian Benteke Liolo (born 3 December 1990) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Major League Soccer club D.C. United and the Belgium national team. Benteke began his career at Standard Liège, playing a part in ...

and

Leandro Trossard Leandro Trossard (born 4 December 1994) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a left winger for Premier League club Arsenal and the Belgium national team. Early life Trossard was born in Maasmechelen, Limburg, to Peter Trossard ...

International career

Castagne made his Belgium national football team debut on 7 September 2018 in a friendly against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, as a starter. On 22 March 2019, he provided an assist for his now Leicester team mate

Youri Tielemans Youri Marion A. Tielemans (born 7 May 1997) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club Leicester City and the Belgium national team. Tielemans began his career at Anderlecht, where he made 185 official appearance ...

in a 3–1 win against

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

in the

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2020) or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

qualifiers. On 12 June 2021, in the 25th minute of Belgium's opening game of the

against

, he collided head-to-head with

Daler Kuzyayev Daler Adyamovich Kuzyayev (russian: Далер Адьямович Кузяев, ; tt-Cyrl, Дәлир Адәм улы Хуҗаев; born 15 January 1993) is a Russian professional footballer who plays for the French club Le Havre and Russia ...

. Both had to be substituted. Castagne suffered a double eye-socket fracture and had to leave the tournament.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Belgium's goal tally first.''

Honours

Leicester City *

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

: 2020–21

References

External links

Profile
at the Leicester City F.C. website * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Castagne, Timothy 1995 births Living people People from Arlon Footballers from Luxembourg (Belgium) Belgian footballers Belgium youth international footballers Belgium under-21 international footballers Belgium international footballers Association football defenders R.E. Virton players K.R.C. Genk players Atalanta B.C. players Leicester City F.C. players Belgian Pro League players Serie A players Premier League players UEFA Euro 2020 players 2022 FIFA World Cup players Belgian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Italy Belgian expatriate sportspeople in England Belgian expatriate sportspeople in Italy FA Cup Final players