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Abou Diaby Biography
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Vassiriki Abou Diaby (born May 11, 1986 in Paris) is a French football midfielder for Arsenal. He normally plays central midfielder. Diaby is commonly known by his middle name Abou.
Club career
Diaby joined Auxerre in 2003. He was a member of the Auxerre team that won the national U-16 championship that year. His coach at the time, Christian Henna, described him as a "very good technician, elegant, quick."[1] He developed into a tall, powerful midfielder. He signed as a professional at Auxerre, playing five matches in 2004-05 and five in the first half of 2005-06.
On January 12, 2006 he signed for Arsenal for a fee believed to be around £2m. Before joining the Gunners, Diaby reportedly turned down a move to Arsenal's rivals Chelsea. He wears the number 2 shirt at Arsenal, which had been vacant since the retirement of Lee Dixon. Diaby has been touted as the replacement for former Gunners midfielder Patrick Vieira, due to his powerful, leggy style of play. He is able to play as an attacking midfielder, an athletic box-to-box midfield "schemer" or in a holding role in front of the back four.
He made his debut as a substitute in a 1-0 defeat to Everton on January 21, 2006. On April 1, Diaby came off the bench to score his first goal for Arsenal, in their 5-0 rout of Aston Villa. A month later however, on 1 May 2006, Diaby suffered a broken and dislocated ankle caused by a reckless two-footed challenge by Sunderland's Dan Smith. At the time, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger said he would take legal advice about possible compensation,[2] for what he called an "unacceptable" challenge. However, Arsenal did not pursue the case.
As a result of the injury, Diaby missed the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final against FC Barcelona, as well as the UEFA U-21 Championship 2006 which he was expected to take part in with France. Diaby was out for eight months, and returned to competitive action on January 9, 2007, when he came on as a substitute for Theo Walcott in Arsenal's League Cup Quarter-Final against Liverpool.
In the 2007 Carling Cup Final in Cardiff, Diaby was involved in a collision with John Terry. As Diaby was trying to clear the ball from a corner kick, Terry was making an attempt to head the ball with a diving header. Diaby's foot impacted with the left side of Terry's jaw, with Terry feeling the full force of the strike and ending up unconscious on the floor for several minutes. The Chelsea captain was carried off on a stretcher and hospitalised but was released from hospital later that afternoon with no apparent long term injury.
International career
He has also been capped 14 times for the France U-19 side, captaining the team in their successful U-19 European Championship campaign in 2005. In February, he made his debut with the France U-21 squad. On the 15th of March 2007, he was called up to the French senior squad (Les Bleus) for the upcoming European Championship qualification match against Lithuania and the friendly match Austria.
* source: wikipedia.org
GNU Free Documentation License
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