Salif Keïta (footballer)
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Salif Keita Traoré | ||
| Date of birth | December 8, 1946 | ||
| Place of birth | Bamako, Mali | ||
| Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||
| Playing position | Striker | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1960–1963 | Stade Malien | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1963 | Pionniers Ouolofobougou | ? | (?) |
| 1963–1965 | Real Bamako | ? | (?) |
| 1965–1966 | Stade Malien | ? | (?) |
| 1966–1967 | Real Bamako | ? | (?) |
| 1967–1972 | Saint-Étienne | 149 | (125) |
| 1972–1973 | Marseille | 18 | (10) |
| 1973–1976 | Valencia | 74 | (23) |
| 1976–1979 | Sporting CP | 63 | (32) |
| 1979–1980 | New England Tea Men | 39 | (17) |
| National team | |||
| 1963–1972 | Mali | 13 | (11) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Salif Keïta Traoré (born 8 December 1946 in Bamako), known as Keita, is a retired Malian footballer who played as a striker.
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[edit] Club career
In his country, Keita played for AS Real Bamako and Stade Malien. With the former, which he represented in two different spells, he was always crowned top division champion.
In 1967, 20-year old Keita left for France to join AS Saint-Étienne, where he won three consecutive Ligue 1 titles, including the double in 1968 and 1970. In his last two seasons with Les Verts combined, he scored an astonishing 71 league goals - 42 alone in the 1970–71 campaign - but the club failed to win any silverware; in 1970, he was voted African Footballer of the Year.[1]
Keita joined fellow league side Olympique de Marseille in the 1972 summer. After the club tried to force him to assume French nationality, he opposed, leaving in the ensuing off-season for Valencia CF in Spain.
Spanish newspapers were accused of racism when one headline read El Valencia va a por alemanes y vuelve con un negro ("Valencia goes out to buy Germans and comes back with a black man"), but he was always loved during his spell at the club, netting in his debut with the Che, a 2–1 La Liga home win against Real Oviedo,[2] and being eventually nicknamed La perla negra de Malí (The black pearl of Mali); he complained, however, that he was constantly played out of position.[3]
In 1976, after three years with Valencia, Keita signed for Sporting Clube de Portugal, where he replaced another legendary goalscorer, Argentine Héctor Yazalde. In two of his three seasons with the Lisbon club, he scored in double digits, winning one domestic cup. He retired at the age of 34 after a couple of years with the New England Tea Men in the United States.
[edit] International career
In 1963, at the age of only 16, Keita was selected to play for Mali. He was part of the squad that appeared at the 1972 African Cup of Nations in Cameroon, helping the national team finish second.
In June 2005, Keita was elected president of the Mali Football Federation for a period of four years. Late into the following year, he was selected by the Confederation of African Football as one of the best 200 African football players of the last 50 years.[4]
[edit] Honours
[edit] Club
- Malian Cup: 1963–64, 1965–66, 1966–67
- French League: 1967–68, 1968–69, 1969–70
- French Cup: 1967–68, 1969–70
- Portuguese Cup: 1977–78
[edit] Country
- Africa Cup of Nations: Runner-up 1972
[edit] Individual
[edit] Personal
Keita's nephew, Seydou Keita, is also a footballer. He also played some years in France, and later represented, with great team and individual success, FC Barcelona.[5] Mohamed Sissoko, who played namely for Valencia, Liverpool and Juventus FC, is also his nephew; both play similar roles as central midfielders.
Keita's cousin, Sidi Yaya Keita, is also a footballer and a midfielder. He played most of his career in France, with RC Lens.
Guinean film director Cheik Doukouré used the life of Keita as a starting point for his 1998 work Le Ballon d'or. In 1994, he created the first training center for professional football players in Mali, which bore his name.
[edit] References
- ^ "Kanoute wins top African accolade". BBC Sport. 1 February 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/7223638.stm. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ "Valencia 2 - Oviedo 1". BDFutbol. 1 September 1973. http://www.bdfutbol.com/en/p/p.php?id=10003. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ "'La perla negra de Mali' no cuajó en el Valencia ['The black pearl from Mali' did not make it in Valencia]" (in Spanish). Diario AS. 25 September 2006. http://www.as.com/futbol/articulo/perla-negra-mali-cuajo-valencia/daiftb/20060925dasdaiftb_5/Tes. Retrieved 3 November 2007.
- ^ "Οι 200 κορυφαίοι Αφρικανοί" (in Greek). Sport 24. 25 October 2006. http://www.sport24.gr/football/article273152.ece?service=print.
- ^ "Seydou Keita se ha forjado un nombre [Seydou Keita has made a name for himself]" (in Spanish). FIFA.com. 30 November 2007. http://es.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=648847.html. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
[edit] External links
- OM profile (French)
- Stats at Liga de Fútbol Profesional (Spanish)
- BDFutbol profile
- Stats at ForaDeJogo (Portuguese)
- Salif Keïta at National-Football-Teams.com
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- 1946 births
- Living people
- People from Bamako
- Association football forwards
- AS Real Bamako players
- Stade Malien players
- Ligue 1 players
- AS Saint-Étienne players
- Olympique de Marseille players
- La Liga footballers
- Valencia CF footballers
- Primeira Liga players
- Sporting Clube de Portugal footballers
- New England Tea Men players
- Mali international footballers
- 1972 African Cup of Nations players
- Malian expatriate footballers
- Expatriate footballers in France
- Expatriate footballers in Spain
- Expatriate footballers in Portugal
- Expatriate soccer players in the United States
- African Footballer of the Year winners
