Benjamin Michel Édouard André (born 3 August 1990) is a French 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

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

defensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. ...

club

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord ...

Club career

Ajaccio

André was with the Corsica-based club Ajaccio since he was 16 years old, joining the club as an academy player after arriving from his hometown of

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (; or , ; commonly shortened to PACA; en, Provence-Alps-French Riviera, italic=yes; also branded as Région Sud) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its prefe ...

. After gaining notice playing on the club's under-18 side, he was promoted to the senior squad for the 2008–09 season, despite being only 17 years old at the time of the promotion. André appeared sparingly early on in the season making his debut on 22 August 2008 against Sedan appearing as a substitute in a 1–1 draw. He earned his first start in a

Coupe de France The Coupe de France, formerly known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and professio ...

match on 22 November 2008 against amateur side Bagnols Pont playing 120 minutes. The match went into a

penalty shootout The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

with the young André converting Ajaccio's final shootout goal ensuring the club's advancement to the next round. Five days later, he made his first league start in a 2–0 defeat to

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the C ...

. Throughout the season, his starts increased and, despite Ajaccio's inconsistent play, became an instant revelation helping the club reach the Round of 16 of the Coupe de France. He scored his first career goal of the season on the final match day of the season against

Châteauroux Châteauroux (; ; oc, Chasteurós) is the capital city of the French department of Indre, central France and the second-largest town in the province of Berry, after Bourges. Its residents are called ''Castelroussins'' () in French. Climate Ch ...

in a 2–1 loss. His best season with Ajaccio was the

2013–14 Ligue 1 The 2013–14 Ligue 1 was the 76th season since its establishment. The season began on 9 August 2013 and ended on 17 May 2014. Paris Saint-Germain were the defending champions. As in the previous years, Adidas provided the official ball for a ...

season. Although Ajaccio were relegated, he provided four goals and five assists across all competitions.

Rennes

In the summer transfer market of 2014, André signed with

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine departm ...

after six years at Ajaccio. On 25 January 2015, he scored his first goal for Stade Rennais in a 4–1 loss against

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,2018–19 Coupe de France as Rennes beat league champions

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As F ...

in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

, playing the full 120 minutes and lifting the trophy as the team captain.

Lille

On 17 July 2019, André signed a four-year deal with

, for a reported €8 million transfer fee. For his first season with Lille, he played his first

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 ...

games. André quickly became an important player for Lille. He showed himself as a consistent performer and their midfield linchpin, as they won their fourth league title during the 2020–21 season, playing 35 league games and emerging as the team vice-captain. Therefore, he was named in the UNFP Team of the Year. During the 2021–22 Lille OSC season, he participated in the 1–0 win against PSG in the

Trophée des Champions The Trophée des Champions (, ) is a French association football trophy contested in an annual match between the champions of Ligue 1 and the winners of the Coupe de France. It is equivalent to the super cups found in many other countries. His ...

, with the club winning that trophy for the first time ever. Later, he helped the team to get out of the

2021–22 UEFA Champions League The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League was the 67th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 30th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. Real Madrid d ...

group stage and played against Chelsea in

round of 16 A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

. On 7 August 2022, André started off the new season under new head coach

Paulo Fonseca Paulo Alexandre Rodrigues Fonseca (born 5 March 1973) is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who played as a central defender. He is the current head coach of French Ligue 1 club Lille. He amassed Primeira Liga totals ...

by scoring Lille's first goal in a 4–1 victory over

Auxerre Auxerre ( , ) is the capital of the Yonne department and the fourth-largest city in Burgundy. Auxerre's population today is about 35,000; the urban area (''aire d'attraction'') comprises roughly 113,000 inhabitants. Residents of Auxerre are re ...

on the league opening weekend, 36 seconds after kick-off. On 12 January 2023, he extended his contract with Lille until 2026.

Personal life

André was born in France to a Senegalese mother and a French father.

Honours

Rennes *

: 2018–19 Lille *

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

Individual * UNFP Ligue 1 Team of the Year:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Andre, Benjamin 1990 births Living people Footballers from Nice French footballers Association football midfielders AC Ajaccio players Stade Rennais F.C. players Lille OSC players Ligue 1 players Ligue 2 players France under-21 international footballers French sportspeople of Senegalese descent