Eliaquim Mangala

Mercedes

Eliaquim arriving at FC Porto's training ground, in his expensive and beautiful Mercedes. This picture was taken when he still used to play in Portugal. It is unknown what car he is driving right now. (Image: Anorak.co.uk)

Eliaquim Mangala was born in the so-called “City of Love”: Paris, France. He prefers to play as a centre back, but also has the ability to play at the defensive midfielder position. The multifunctional player is left footed and 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) tall. At the age of five he moved with his parents to Belgium. In Belgium he started to play football for the small club of Lustin. After a couple of years he moved to CS Wépionnais, a slightly bigger club in the same area. It was at CS Wépionnais where his potential became clearly visible. He was a relevation, and only two years later the French defender joined UR Namen, a well-known Belgian football club. They played in the Third Division, and ofcourse, there were scouts from all over the world watching their games. Standard Luik got interested as well, and offered him a contract for three years. Eliaquim played very well in Luik, and made his debut in the first team only a year after. His star raised quickly and several big European topclubs wanted to buy him. It was FC Porto who got lucky. They signed the talented defender for only 7 Million Euro (6.2 Million Pound). In his first season at FC Porto he was mainly a substitute, replacing established names such as Maicon, Nicolas Otamendi and Rolando. Porto won the title that year, but it was the year after that the French defender officialy made his breakthrough. Due to his performance that year worldclass clubs showed their interest such as AC Milan, Manchester United and FC Barcelona. It was Manchester City who bought him in 2014. He signed a 5 year contract at “The Citizens”, who paid a transfer fee of 35 Million Euro (31 Million Pound) to FC Porto.