Do You Remember Them #18- Frederic Kanoute

Biodata

Full Name: Frederic Oumar Kanoute

Nationality: Malian

Date of Birth: 2 September 1977

Position: Striker

Former Clubs:

1997- 2000 Lyon

2000- 2003 West Ham United

2003- 2005 Tottenham Hotspur

2005- 2012 Sevilla

2012- 2013 Beijing Guoan

International Career:

2004- 2010 Mali

Achievement:

Lyon

1997- 1998 Intertoto Cup

Sevilla

2005- 2006 UEFA Cup

2006 UEFA Super Cup

2006- 2007 Copa del Rey

2006- 2007 UEFA Cup

2007 Supercopa de Espana

2009- 2010 Copa del Rey

Career

The 2002/2003 West Ham United side certainly shocked most of the football fans when their relegation was confirmed on the last day of the season. Despite the club suffered relegation from the English Premier League, this is a relatively strong squad with the combination of experienced players and young talents such as Paolo Di Canio, Glen Johnson, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick. Of course, the main character of this article is also one of the bright stars in this underperforming team. He is Frederic Kanoute.

Kanoute started his football career in his local team, Lyon as he joined them as an apprentice at the age of 20. In the same year, Kanoute made his debut for Lyon in the Intertoto Cup competition against Polish side, Odra Wodzislaw, where he also scored in this match too. He was also involved in every game in the competition and helped this Lyon side to win this tournament too. Kanoute’s league debut later that year in the match against FC Metz. He replaced Cedric Bardon in the 70th minute of the match. In his debut campaign as a professional football player, Kanoute has scored 6 goals in 18 league matches. At the same time, Kanoute also involved in the France under-21 team later that year too. Hence, his talent doesn’t go unnoticed in both club and national level.

However, Kanoute was used sparingly during his three seasons stay in Lyon and has been sent out on loan to West Ham United on March 2000 for the remaining of the season. During his temporary move to Upton Park, Kanoute scored twice in eight games and helped West Ham United to a top-half finish in that season. His performance had persuaded Harry Redknapp to sign him permanently in the next season to play him alongside Paolo Di Canio. Kanoute had certainly performed better as he is the top scorer for West Ham United in both 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 season. With the latter season, his goals had helped West Ham United to achieve yet another top-half finish in the Premier League. However, the emergence of Jermaine Defoe had limited his playing time in the 2002/2003 season. Despite the six goals contributions in just 17 matches in that season, West Ham United was relegated at the last match of the season.

Kanoute’s journey in the English Premier League didn’t end here as he was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for 3.5million in the next season. He takes the Premier League by storm as he scored 12 goals in 19 matches in all competition for his new club and formed a reliable partnership with Robbie Keane in the first half of the season, including a hat trick against Crystal Palace in FA Cup. With this impressive performance, Kanoute accepted the call-up from Mali national team to compete in 2004 African Cup of Nation. In which both Mali and Kanoute were impressive in this competition. Kanoute scored four goals in four matches in the competition as Mali had reached semi-finals in this competition.

However, his performance after the competition dried up very soon and his place was once again limited by Jermaine Defoe. In the next season, the striker spot in Tottenham Hotspur was rotated between Kanoute, Keane, Mido and Defoe. Despite the competition between the other striking option in Tottenham, he still managed to get 13 goals and assists in 41 matches. Unfortunately, his performance was lacklustre when it compared with the other striking option. Therefore, he was once again transferred. This time, he made his by far best decision in his football pathway.

On August 2005, Kanoute signed for Sevilla for 6.5million. At the beginning of his career in Sevilla, his performance between La Liga and UEFA Cup are quite different. Kanoute scored four goals and registered one assist in his first six European games in Sevilla’s shirt. However, he only scored his first goal in La Liga against Barcelona in mid-December. In his first season in Sevilla, Kanoute scored 12 goals in 44 appearances in all competition. In which he also helped Sevilla to win the UEFA Cup. This is just the beginning of the peak of Kanoute’s Sevilla career.

Kanoute started his second season by helping Sevilla to a UEFA Super Cup triumph as he is one of the goal scorers who helped Sevilla to beat Barcelona 3-0. In this particular season, Kanoute had scored 28 goals in all competitions to help Sevilla to retain their UEFA Cup and also reached third place in La Liga. In the next three years, he also formed a deadly duo strike partnership with Luis Fabiano to help Sevilla to reach the top four of the La Liga table in three out of four seasons. In the last season in Sevilla, his goal-scoring number has dropped due to injury problems and his place as the main striker was replaced by Alvaro Negredo.

In order to gain more playing time in the final moment of his career, Kanoute signed for Beijing Guoan. His performance in China started brightly as he scored a brace against Qingdao Jonoon in the Chinese FA Cup. In his first half-year in China, he scored three goals in 12 matches. The second season was definitely an improvement for Kanoute as he registered 18 goals contributions in just 35 games in all competition. However, Kanoute decided to call out his time as a football player after the contract with Beijing Guoan has ended.

Post Retirement

Kanoute has launched an appeal to establish a ‘Children’s Village’ in his home nation, Mali and started the ‘Kanoute Foundation’ to realise the mission. He had talked about his Foundation and the Village in the book ‘How to do good: Essays in Building a Better World’ that published in December 2016. He also took part in a speaker tour around Europe in 2017 alongside other philanthropists. He also aimed to establish the first purpose-built mosque in Seville back in 2019.

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