Willy-Arnaud Zobo Boly (born 3 February 1991) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a centre-back for

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

club

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...

. Born in France, he represents the Ivory Coast national team.

Club career

Auxerre

Born in

Melun Melun () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region, north-central France. It is located on the southeastern outskirts of Paris, about from the centre of the capital. Melun is the prefecture of the Seine-et-Ma ...

Seine-et-Marne Seine-et-Marne () is a department in the Île-de-France region in Northern France. Named after the rivers Seine and Marne, it is the region's largest department with an area of 5,915 square kilometres (2,284 square miles); it roughly covers its ...

, Boly played youth football for three clubs, also having a three-year spell at the

INF Clairefontaine The INF Clairefontaine (""), INF, or simply Clairefontaine, is the national football centre that specialises in training French football players. The INF Clairefontaine is a section of the CNF Clairefontaine. The academy is one of thirteen ''� ...

academy. He made his senior debut with

AJ Auxerre Association de la Jeunesse Auxerroise (), commonly known as AJ Auxerre or simply Auxerre (), is a French football club based in the commune of Auxerre in Burgundy. The club was founded in 1905 and currently plays in Ligue 1, the first division ...

's reserves and, in February 2011, he signed his first professional contract after agreeing to a three-year deal with an option for a fourth. On 16 April 2011, Boly made his Ligue 1 debut by playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–0 away win against

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

. He scored his first goal in the competition the following matchday, in a 1–1 home draw to

Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements ...

. Boly was an undisputed starter in the 2011–12 season (33 games, one goal), but the ''AJA'' were relegated to Ligue 2 after finishing last.

Braga

On 1 September 2014, Boly moved to Portugal and joined

Braga Braga ( , ; cel-x-proto, Bracara) is a city and a municipality, capital of the northwestern Portuguese district of Braga and of the historical and cultural Minho Province. Braga Municipality has a resident population of 193,333 inhabitants (in ...

on a four-year deal. He spent his first season with

the B-team The B-Team was a professional wrestling tag team in WWE, composed of Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel. The team are former one-time WWE Raw Tag Team Champions. They also formerly performed as The Social Outcasts and The Miztourage from 2016 to 2018 ...

, in the Segunda Liga.

Porto

On 31 August 2016, Boly signed a five-year contract with

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

with a €45 million buyout clause. He played only eight competitive matches during his spell, including the 1–0 away loss against

Juventus FC )''I Bianconeri'' (The White and Blacks)''Le Zebre'' (The Zebras)''La Signora Omicidi'' (The Killer Lady)''La Gheuba'' (: The Hunchback) , founded = as Sport-Club Juventus , ground = Juventus Stadium , capacity = 41,507 , owner = Agnell ...

for the last-16 stage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

where he featured the second half after coming on as a substitute for André Silva.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

On 8 July 2017, Boly joined EFL Championship club

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

on a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

-long loan, reuniting him with his former head coach

Nuno Espírito Santo Nuno Herlander Simões Espírito Santo (born 25 January 1974), often referred to as simply Nuno, is a Portuguese football manager and former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is currently the manager of Saudi Professional League club Al- ...

. He made his competitive debut for Wolverhampton on the opening day of the 2017–18 season in a 1–0 home win against

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

, and scored his first goal with them on 31 October to help Wolves win 2–0 away against

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 20 ...

. After making 37 official appearances and helping them achieve promotion, Boly signed a permanent contract with Wolves. He made his

debut on 11 August 2018, in a 2–2 home draw against Everton. He scored his first goal in the competition two weeks later in a 1–1 home draw to Manchester City, but the goal proved controversial as television replays showed the ball was deflected into the goal by his forearm after glancing off his head. Boly scored his first ever goal in UEFA European competition in Wolves's

2019–20 UEFA Europa League The 2019–20 UEFA Europa League was the 49th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 11th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. Sevilla defeated Inter Milan in the fin ...

Group Stage game against Beşiktaş in Istanbul on 3 October 2019, a game that Wolves won 1–0. Boly fractured his left

fibula The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity i ...

in training on 26 October 2019, necessitating surgery to insert a plate and screws on 30 October 2019. Boly returned from this injury in Wolves's 0–0 draw away to Manchester United on 1 February 2020, although he had been an unused substitute in Wolves's previous Premier League fixture at home to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

on 23 January 2020. Boly scored his first goal of the 2020–21 season, and his first Premier League goal since the 2018–19 season, on 16 January 2021 against

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...

in the

Black Country derby The Black Country derby is the local derby between English football teams West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers, apart in the Black Country of the West Midlands. The most successful side in the Black Country derby is West Bromwich A ...

. On 5 April 2021, after returning from playing with his national team in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifications, Wolves announced that Boly had caught

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

, and was self-isolating in line with government guidance. Wolves's head coach, Nuno Espírito Santo, announced after Wolves's Premier League game with West Bromwich Albion on 3 May 2021 that Boly was suffering the effects of

long covid Long COVID or long-haul COVID (also known as post-COVID-19 syndrome, post-COVID-19 condition, post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), or chronic COVID syndrome (CCS)) is a condition characterized by long-term health problems persisting or app ...

, ruling him out from appearing for Wolves in the game that evening. Boly would not feature for Wolves again until 19 May 2021, when he played the full 90 minutes of the away Premier League game at Everton.

Nottingham Forest

On 1 September 2022, Boly signed with Premier League side

on a two-year deal for an undisclosed fee.

International career

Born to Ivorian parents, Boly represented

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

at under-16, under-17 and under-19 levels. Boly switched to represent the Ivory Coast national team in 2020. He debuted for the Ivory Coast in a 2–1

2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualification The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches were organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to decide the participating teams of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, the 33rd edition of the international men's football champion ...

win over

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

on 12 November 2020.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Ivory Coast's goal tally first. Score column indicates score after each Boly goal.''

Honours

Braga *

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; "Cup of Portugal") is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Placard since the 2015–16 sea ...

: 2015–16 Wolverhampton Wanderers * EFL Championship: 2017–18 Ivory Coast * Africa Cup of Nations:

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

Individual * PFA Team of the Year: 2017–18 Championship

References

External links

Profile
at the Nottingham Forest F.C. website * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boly, Willy 1991 births Living people Footballers from Seine-et-Marne Sportspeople from Melun Black French sportspeople Ivorian men's footballers Ivory Coast men's international footballers French men's footballers France men's youth international footballers French sportspeople of Ivorian descent Men's association football central defenders Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players AJ Auxerre players Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players S.C. Braga B players S.C. Braga players FC Porto players Premier League players English Football League players Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players Nottingham Forest F.C. players Ivorian expatriate men's footballers French expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in England Ivorian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Ivorian expatriate sportspeople in England French expatriate sportspeople in Portugal French expatriate sportspeople in England 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players 2023 Africa Cup of Nations players Africa Cup of Nations-winning players