Manuel Obafemi Akanji (born 19 July 1995) is a Swiss 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 defender for club

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

and the Switzerland national team.

Club career

Youth football and early career

Born in

Neftenbach Neftenbach is a municipality in the district of Winterthur in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. Besides the village of Neftenbach itself, the municipality includes the settlements of Hünikon, Aesch, Riet and Irchelhöfen. History Neftenbach ...

, Akanji began his youth career with the local club in Wiesendangen. In May 2007, Akanji changed clubs and was a youth-team player for

FC Winterthur FC Winterthur is a Swiss football club based in Winterthur, Canton of Zürich. They play in the Swiss Super League, the first tier of Swiss football, and appeared regularly in the Nationalliga A during the 20th century. Their home is the Stad ...

, featuring for their Under-18 team and later with their second team. In the 2014–15 Challenge League, he became a regular starter for Winterthur having played two games for them during the second half of the 2013–14 season.

Basel

On 15 April 2015, it was announced that Akanji would transfer to

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

for the 2015–16 Super League season.''Ein neuer Verteidiger für den FCB: Manuel Akanji kommt vom FC Winterthur''

TagesWoche ''TagesWoche'' is a Swiss German-language online newspaper, with a weekly Friday printed edition, published in Basel, Switzerland by Neue Medien Basel AG. History and operation The newspaper's first edition appeared on 28 October 2011. It was cr ...

dated 15. April 2015 He made his

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

debut on 26 September 2015 being substituted in against

FC Lugano FC Lugano is a Swiss football club based in Lugano. The club was refounded as AC Lugano in 2004 as a result of relegation and the financial situation of FC Lugano, which was founded in 1908. In 2008, the club reverted to its original name, FC Lu ...

. Under trainer

Urs Fischer Urs Fischer (born 2 May 1973) is a Swiss-born contemporary visual artist living in New York City. Fischer’s practice includes sculpture, installation and photography. Education and early career Born to two doctors as the second of two children ...

, Akanji won the

championship at the end of the 2015–16 Super League season and at the end of the 2016–17 Super League season for the second time. For the club this was the eighth title in a row and their 20th championship title in total. They also won the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

for the twelfth time, which meant they had won the double for the sixth time in the club's history. As Swiss Champions, Basel qualified for the

2017–18 UEFA Champions League The 2017–18 UEFA Champions League was the 63rd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 26th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was pla ...

and started in the

Group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concent ...

. Akanji played in all six games over the full 90 minutes and helped the team finish in second group position, thus qualifying for the next round. On 15 January 2018, Basel announced that Akanji had transferred to

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional footb ...

Borussia Dortmund

Akanji transferred to Borussia Dortmund on 15 January 2018 during the winter transfer window for a reported fee of 18 million euros. He signed a four and a half year contract dated until June 2022. On 27 September, Akanji scored his first goal for the club and his first Bundesliga goal in a 7–0 victory over 1. FC Nürnberg. Akanji was widely criticised for his costly errors during Dortmund's failed challenge to Bayern during the 2019–20 season. Akanji was one of the main players singled out as a weak link in the team.

Manchester City

On 1 September 2022, Akanji joined

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 Foo ...

champions

, signing a contract until 2027 for a reported fee of £15 million. He made his debut for City five days later, starting in a 4–0 away win over

Sevilla Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Gua ...

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 ...

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concent ...

. He made his Premier League debut on 17 September, starting in a 3–0 away win over

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

. He was voted the Etihad player of the month for October.

International career

Akanji made two appearances for the Switzerland U-20 national team. His debut was on 7 September 2014 in the 0–0 draw against the German U-20 national team. From 2014, he was a member of the Switzerland U-21 team and made his debut for them on 26 March in the 0–3 defeat by the Italian U-21 team. Akanji made his debut in the senior team in the 2–0 win against

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

in the

2018 World Cup qualification The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA FIFA#Structure, confederations to decide 31 of the 32 teams which would play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with Russia national football team, Rus ...

match on 9 June 2017. He played the entire 90 minutes. He was included in the Swiss team's 23 man squad for the

2018 World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting righ ...

in Russia. In May 2019, Akanji played in

2019 UEFA Nations League Finals The 2019 UEFA Nations League Finals was the final tournament of the 2018–19 edition of the UEFA Nations League, the inaugural season of the international football competition involving the men's national teams of the 55 member associations of ...

, where his team finished fourth. In 2021, he was called up to the national team for

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 ...

. Akanji scored his first senior international goal against

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

in a 2–1

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 ...

victory on 24 September 2022. Akanji scored the only goal for the Switzerland national team in a 6–1 loss to

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

in the

FIFA World Cup 2022 The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international 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; it is the first Worl ...

on 7 December 2022.

Personal life

Akanji was born in

, Switzerland to a Swiss mother and a Nigerian father. He has two sisters, one of which (Sarah) is a football player and politician for the Social Democrats. In 2017, already a professional player, he completed his

vocational training Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an ind ...

as a

tradesman A tradesman, tradeswoman, or tradesperson is a skilled worker that specializes in a particular trade (occupation or field of work). Tradesmen usually have work experience, on-the-job training, and often formal vocational education in contrast to ...

(″Kaufmann″). In Swiss TV in 2018 he showed excellent skills at

mental calculation Mental calculation consists of arithmetical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from any supplies (such as pencil and paper) or devices such as a calculator. People may use mental calculation when computing tools are not availab ...

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Switzerland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Akanji goal.''

Honours

FC Basel *

: 2015–16, 2016–17 *

: 2016–17 Borussia Dortmund *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

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 ...

* DFL-Supercup:

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Akanji, Manuel 1995 births Living people People from Winterthur District Sportspeople from the canton of Zürich Swiss men's footballers Association football defenders FC Winterthur players FC Basel players Borussia Dortmund players Manchester City F.C. players Expatriate footballers in England Swiss expatriate sportspeople in England Swiss expatriate sportspeople in Germany Swiss Challenge League players Swiss Super League players Bundesliga players Switzerland youth international footballers Switzerland under-21 international footballers Switzerland international footballers 2018 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 2020 players 2022 FIFA World Cup players Swiss expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Germany Swiss people of Nigerian descent Sportspeople of Nigerian descent