The 2024-2025 French Ligue 1 season kicks off on Friday, August 16, with a match between Le Havre and defending champions Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). In a league with many new or already present African talents, here are five African players to watch this season.
Lens, which has qualified for the UEFA Conference League, did not pay a single euro for Malang Sarr, the 25-year-old French-Senegalese defender who joined from Chelsea. The player, who came through Nice's youth academy, and made his professional debut there, never managed to establish himself in England. The London club loaned him out to FC Porto (2020-2021) and then to Monaco (2022-2023). Sarr played a total of just 21 matches for the Blues, and not a single one last season, despite earning €460,000 a month.
The defender, who was born in Nice, wore the French jersey from the U-16s through to the U-21s, and remains eligible to play for Senegal's first team. Aliou Cissé, Senegal's coach, spoke with Sarr in 2022, who politely refused, explaining that the French team was his priority. The Senegalese coach could soon renew contact, as the defender now seems to be a long way from Les Bleus.
The 19-year-old attacking midfielder or striker is no stranger to Ligue 1, where he has already played 32 matches over the last two seasons and scored 6 goals with his club, which has qualified for the Champions League. It will be interesting to observe the development of this technical and selfless player, who left an impression by scoring a brace in his first Ligue 1 match in December 2022 against Auxerre (3-2), when he was just 17 years old.
There is still plenty of room for improvement, and Elisse Ben Seghir, whose last season was disrupted by injury, is well aware of this. The former French youth international has also decided to wear the Moroccan jersey, despite the French Football Federation's insistence that he continue his international career with French youth teams. He won his first cap for Walid Regragui's Atlas Lions in March, against Angola in a friendly (1-0).
The imposing central defender (1.93 m) was born in Paris and trained at PSG, but it's only at the age of 27 that this Ivorian international will discover Ligue 1 with Stade de Reims.
Cédric Kipré left France in 2014 to join England and Leicester. He made his professional debut on loan at the modest Scottish club Motherwell, before returning to England where he played for Wigan and then West Bromwich Albion, with loan spells at Charleroi and Cardiff City. West Brom, having just missed out on promotion to the Premier League, let him go so that he could sign a three-year contract with Reims. Côte d'Ivoire coach Emerse Fae will certainly be keeping an eye on him this season.
The 29-year-old Algerian international's first four months in a Lyon shirt, after arriving on loan from West Ham United, can be considered a success. The native of Aïn Temouchent scored three goals and provided as many assists, contributing to the turnaround of a pugnacious team that qualified for the Europa League with a sixth-place finish.
His performances convinced Lyon's directors to trigger the €14.4 million purchase option and offer him a three-year contract. The striker who was trained at Nice's academy is hoping to play his first full season in Ligue 1, a league in which he played sparingly with Nice and later Angers, before leaving for Brentford in 2018.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has left Marseille for Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia, but there's still one Gabonese international in Ligue 1: striker Shavy Babicka, 24, who arrived in Toulouse at the end of the last winter transfer market from Aris Limassol in Cyprus.
The winger, who didn't get much playing time in his first few months in France, scored just one goal. Toulouse's directors and its coach, the Spaniard Carles Martinez Novell, were expecting more from a player bought for nearly €2.8 million and under contract until 2027. Babicky, who played in the Gabonese and Rwandan leagues before moving to Cyprus and Europe, was given six months to adapt to the French league.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.