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Emmanuel Eboue Biography
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Emmanuel Eboué (born June 4, 1983 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) is an Ivorian football player who currently plays for Arsenal as a defender. He predominantly plays as an defender right fullback.
ASEC Mimosas
Eboue is a graduate of Jean-Marc Guillou's football academy in Abidjan which was attached to ASEC Mimosas. Eboue moved with a large number of the graduates to K.S.K. Beveren in September 2002. The Belgium employment law allowed less experienced players to play football there while other countries required non-EU players to have International experience.
KSK Beveren
Eboue played for three seasons at Beveren which had a joint relationship with Arsenal to develop players. In December 2004 he and Marco Ne were given a trial at Highbury. As a result he was signed by Arsenal on January 1, 2005, on a four-year contract for a fee of £1.54 million. The move allowed him to join fellow Ivory Coast international Kolo Touré at Highbury.
Arsenal
His debut came only days after signing from Beveren, in the FA Cup against Stoke City. Although he was not initially a first team regular, making just one FA Premier League appearance, as a substitute, in 2004-05, Eboué's was regularly in Arsenal's reserve team that season.
In 2005-06 Eboué made his break into the Arsenal side. He started the season mainly as a reserve player, though he scored his first goal for Arsenal in the club's 3-0 League Cup Third Round victory at Sunderland, on October 25, 2005. Despite leaving for the African Cup of Nations in January 2006 he was immediately sent into action on his return; he made his first career Premiership start at right back against Liverpool at Anfield, replacing the injured Lauren. With Lauren injured for the rest of the season, Eboué held his place for the remainder of Arsenal's 2005-06 campaign.
Eboué's run in the Arsenal side included matches in the UEFA Champions League knockout phase against Real Madrid, Juventus and Villarreal. Impressed with the way the Ivorian adapted to the increased pace of the Premiership and pressure of the Champions League, Arséne Wenger even compared Eboué to the legendary Brazilian winger Garrincha after an energetic performance in the April 1, 2006 game against Aston Villa.[1]
Eboué continued in the starting line-up for Arsenal in the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final at the Stade de France. He performed solidly, but attracted criticism (including a public denouncement from Wenger) for his dive, on the edge of the Barcelona penalty area under an innocuous challenge, as he sought to counter-attack — with Arsenal having been reduced to 10 men by the sending-off of goalkeeper Jens Lehmann. The resulting free kick ended up in an Arsenal opening goal, scored by team-mate Sol Campbell. The Londoners' luck did not hold out and Barcelona scored twice through Samuel Eto'o and later Juliano Belletti in the last fifteen minutes to win the game 2-1.
Eboué started the 2006-07, and was awarded the Arsenal Player of the Month award for September. However, he was injured in an international and spent the whole of the month of October out with injury. He made his first team return as a substitute in the 1-0 defeat by West Ham United on November 5, and started the League Cup win over Everton later that same week. He scored his second Arsenal goal in their 3-1 Champions League victory over Hamburger SV on 21 November 2006.
International career
Eboué earned his full cap against Sudan in September 2004. In early 2006 he performed very well at the African Cup of Nations as the Ivory Coast's first-choice right-back. The Ivory Coast eventually lost in the Final on penalties to the hosts Eygpt.
Eboué was selected for the Ivory Coast squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals in Germany. He played the full 270 minutes of his nation's campaign, successive 2-1 defeats by Argentina and the Netherlands followed by a 3-2 victory over Serbia & Montenegro which came too late to save Ivory Coast from 1st round elimination.
Other
Eboué married his Belgian girlfriend before he joined Arsenal.
In June 2006, BBC's 'Newsnight' made accusations that Eboué's transfer from Beveren had involved Arsenal contravening FIFA regulations by paying money which, in essence, put them in control of the Belgian club. The FA, under FIFA's direction, conducted an inquiry, but this found no evidence to support the allegations.
He shares the same birthday and year as his fellow Ivorian international Romaric.
* source: wikipedia.org
GNU Free Documentation License
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