Yacouba Nasser Djiga (born 15 November 2002) is a Burkinabé 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 lea ...

who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for club

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club ( ), commonly referred to as Wolves, is a professional association football, football club based in Wolverhampton, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league s ...

and the Burkina Faso national team.

Club career

Early career

Djiga played his youth football with Vitesse FC in Burkina Faso. After having received various call-ups to their first team and having made his team debut during the last games of the 2018–19 season, he advanced to their squad in the 2019–20 season. Djiga played 14 games for them, scoring one goal, in the Deuxième Division the second tier of football in Burkina Faso. Despite the season remaining uncompleted due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, because the team were league leaders, they won promotion to the

Burkinabé Premier League The Fasofoot D1 is the top division of the Burkinabé Football Federation. It was created in 1961. Burkinabé Premier League clubs (2021–22) * AS Koupéla ( Koupéla) * AS Douanes (Ouagadougou) * ASEC Koudougou ( Koudougou) * ASFA Yennenga (Ou ...

. In the following season Djiga was regular starter in the team. He received a calls-up to the Burkina Faso U20 team and played four games for them in the

2021 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations The 2021 U-20 Africa Cup of Nations was the 16th edition (23rd edition if editions of the tournament without hosts are included), the biennial international youth association football, football tournament organized by the Confederation of African ...

FC Basel

During the transfer window in the summer of 2021, Djiga signed for Swiss top flight side

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

after receiving interest from

Lille OSC Lille Olympique Sporting Club (), commonly referred to as LOSC, LOSC Lille or simply Lille, is a French professional association football, football club based in Lille, Northern France competing in Ligue 1, the top division of Football in Franc ...

in the French

Ligue 1 Ligue 1 (; ), officially known as Ligue 1 McDonald's France, McDonald's for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in France and the highest level of the French football league system. Administered by the Ligue de ...

and Belgian and Spanish clubs. Basel announced his signing on 19 June. Djiga joined Basel's first team for their 2021–22 season under head coach

Patrick Rahmen Patrick Rahmen (born 3 April 1969) is a Swiss football coach and former player. He played as midfielder or forward. He was most recently the head coach of Young Boys in the Swiss Super League. Club career Patrick Rahmen learned his football s ...

. After having played in five test games, on 29 July 2021 Djiga debuted for them during a 2–0 away win over Partizani in the second qualifying round of the

2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League The 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League was the inaugural season of the UEFA Europa Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA. The final was played at the Arena Kombëtare in Tirana, Albania, with Rom ...

. Unfortunately Djiga injured himself during the game and was forced out for six weeks with a capsular ligament injury in the left ankle. He returned to the team on 19 September to play the

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

match against armature team FC Rorschach-Goldach. On 24 October Djiga then played his

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

debut for his new club in the home game at

St. Jakob-Park St. Jakob-Park () is a Swiss sports stadium in Basel. It is the largest football venue in Switzerland and home to FC Basel. "Joggeli", as the venue is nicknamed by the locals, was originally built with a capacity of 33,433 seats. The capacity w ...

as Basel won 2–0 against

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

and he played the entire game. During that season Djiga played just six domestic league matches, three in the Conference League and two in the Swiss Cup, but he also had six appearances in their U-21 team who played in the 2021–22 Promotion League, the third tier of Swiss football.

Loan to Nîmes and return to Basel

On 28 August 2022, Djiga joined

Nîmes Nîmes ( , ; ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Gard Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Located between the Med ...

in France on a season-long loan. Following his loan, Djiga returned to Basel and played, under their new head coach

Timo Schultz Timo Schultz (born 26 August 1977) is a German former footballer, and manager, who was most recently the manager of 1. FC Köln. Career Born in Wittmund, Schultz is a youth product of Werder Bremen. After playing for the club's reserves for fou ...

mainly as substitute, in the first four domestic league games of the

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 axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

as well as both games in the Conference League games. On 20 August 2023 he played in their starting eleven as the team played their first round

Cup A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about . Cups may be made of pottery (including porcelain), glass, metal, wood, stone, pol ...

match against lower-level opponents FC Saint-Blaise. He scored his first goal for his club in this game, it was the team's fourth goal, as they went on to win 8–1.

Red Star Belgrade

On 4 September, FC Basel announced that Djiga was loaned out to

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club), commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda () and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in anglophone media, is a ...

. In his first season with them, Red Star became

2023–24 Serbian SuperLiga The 2023–24 Serbian SuperLiga (known as the Mozzart Bet SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons) is the 18th season of the Serbian SuperLiga, the top Association football, football league of Serbia. Red Star Belgrade, Red Star are the defending champ ...

champions and won the

2023–24 Serbian Cup The 2023–24 Serbian Cup season is the eighteenth season of the Serbian national football cup competition. It started on 13 September 2023, and ended on 23 May 2024. Calendar Preliminary round A preliminary round was held in order to reduc ...

. On 17 May 2024 it was announced that the club pulled their option and took the player over on a permanent deal.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

On 3 February 2025, Djiga joined

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

club

by signing a contract until 2030.

International career

Djiga debuted for the Burkina Faso national team in a 5–0 friendly loss to

Kosovo Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

on 24 March 2022. On 20 December 2023 he was selected from the list of 27 Burkinabé players selected by

Hubert Velud Hubert Velud (born 8 June 1959) is a French football manager and former player, who is currently the manager of Moroccan club AS FAR. Playing career Velud was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône. A goalkeeper, played for Stade de Reims, Châlons-s ...

to compete in the

2023 Africa Cup of Nations The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, known in short as the 2023 AFCON or CAN 2023 and for sponsor (commercial), sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, was the 34th edition of the biennial Africa Cup of Nations tournam ...

Career statistics

Club

References

External links

Profile on the Swiss Football League homepage

Profile at FC Basel
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Djiga, Nasser 2002 births Living people Burkinabe men's footballers Men's association football defenders FC Basel players Nîmes Olympique players Red Star Belgrade footballers Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players Swiss Super League players Ligue 2 players Serbian SuperLiga players Burkina Faso men's under-20 international footballers Burkina Faso men's international footballers 2023 Africa Cup of Nations players Burkinabe expatriate men's footballers Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in France Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in Serbia Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Expatriate men's footballers in France Expatriate men's footballers in Serbia Expatriate men's footballers in England 21st-century Burkinabe sportsmen