Demba Ba is a Senegalese footballer of French descent. He turned 31 in 2016, but his career may be at risk due to the extremely serious injury he recently received. Demba Ba plays the position of the central striker, but, if necessary, can play on both attack flanks.
Carier start
Demba Ba was born on May 25, 1985 in France with his Senegalese parents. Already at the age of seven, he enrolled in the football academy of the local small club “Mongayar”, where he spent seven whole years. But in 1999, Ba began his travels to various clubs - at first he ended up at Port Oton, then at the Frilez club, and then at Monruz - only there he could stay. All this time, the player played in the position of a defensive midfielder, and only at Montrouge he was re-qualified as an attacker. However, by that time Demba Ba was already 19 years old, and not a single French club after the views wanted to offer him a contract. After that, the forward went to England, where he was refused by Watford, as well as several other clubs. Then, representatives of Watford called him back and offered to still train with the team. He spent more than a month on the basis of this FC, but when a new coach arrived, the player had to leave the club and he returned to his homeland.
There Ba also nobody wanted to offer a contract until he managed to negotiate with the club "Rouen". In 2005, a 20-year-old player was able to play 26 matches in a semi-professional league, scoring 22 goals. By this he attracted the attention of the Belgian Muskron, who invited the Senegalese to him. So Ba first got to the club, performing at the highest level. But there he played just 12 matches in a year, scoring eight goals. It was in the Belgian club of the striker that the German “Hoffenheim” noticed the player who offered him the base game and paid three million euros for the transfer.
Game in Germany, England and Turkey
Demba Ba is a football player who could not immediately reveal himself. As you already understood, for a long time he could not find a professional club for himself. In Hoffenheim, he began to play on a whole new level. After playing 30 matches and scoring 12 goals, he helped the club reach the big leagues, and then for two and a half years helped Hoffenheim stay there. In total, he spent 103 matches in the German club, scoring forty goals.
In the winter of 2011, for just 800 thousand euros, Ba moved to West Ham, where he played 13 matches and scored seven goals. The Senegalese short-term contract ended in the summer of 2011, and he moved to Newcastle. There he spent a year and a half, having entered the field 58 times and scoring 29 goals. Striker striking ability impressed one of the strongest clubs in England “Chelsea”, which signed it for eight and a half million euros. However, in the London club he could not reach the previous level and scored only 14 goals in 51 matches. This did not suit either side, so in the summer of 2014 Ba went to Turkey, where he signed a contract with him, Galatasaray, which paid 6 million euros for him. The season in Turkey turned out to be gorgeous - Ba scored 27 goals in 44 matches, and thereby attracted the attention of the Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua.
Relocation to China
The Chinese club paid Galatasaray 13 million euros for the Senegalese, and also offered the player an impressive salary. And the football player began to play quite successfully in China - in 37 matches he scored 29 goals, but then there was a serious nuisance. The injury to Demba Ba, which he received, turned out to be very serious - he is now undergoing recovery, but the timing of his return is unknown. There is a possibility that he will not be able to resume his career.
Team appearances
Demba Ba played very little for the Senegal team - he made his debut in June 2007, but since then he has only played 22 matches, in which he scored four goals. The last time he was called to the national team in March 2015 for a friendly match against the Ghana national team.