Tahith Jose Girigorio Djorkaef Chong (born 4 December 1999) is a Dutch 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 winger for club

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

. Chong joined the Manchester United Academy aged 16, after progressing through the Feyenoord youth system. He won both the

Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year Manchester United Football Club Under-21s is the most senior of Manchester United's youth teams and the club's former reserve team. They play in the Premier League 2, the highest tier of the Professional Development League. The team is effect ...

and Denzil Haroun Reserve Player of the Year awards at United. He made his professional debut in 2019, in an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competit ...

game against

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

. In August 2020, he joined

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are best known for the ...

on a season-long loan, which was cut short in January 2021 to facilitate a loan move to

Club Brugge (), known simply as Club Brugge (in English also: ''Club Bruges''), is a Belgian professional football club based in Bruges, Belgium. It was founded in 1891 and its home ground is the Jan Breydel Stadium, which has a capacity of 29,062.

. He spent the 2021–22 season on loan at Birmingham City and then joined the club permanently in September 2022. Chong made more than 40 appearances for the Netherlands national youth teams from under-15 to under-21 level. He is also eligible to represent Curaçao at international level.

Early life

Chong was born in

Willemstad Willemstad ( , ; ; en, William Town, italic=yes) is the capital city of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was the capital of the Netherlands Antilles p ...

Curaçao Curaçao ( ; ; pap, Kòrsou, ), officially the Country of Curaçao ( nl, Land Curaçao; pap, Pais Kòrsou), is a Lesser Antilles island country in the southern Caribbean Sea and the Dutch Caribbean region, about north of the Venezuela coas ...

which was then part of the Netherlands Antilles. He is of African and Chinese descent. He later moved to

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

, Netherlands, in order to pursue a move to a professional club. Upon completing a move to

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

, Chong's parents also moved to England.

Club career

Early career

Chong joined the youth ranks of

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is ...

club

Feyenoord Feyenoord Rotterdam () is a Dutch professional football club in Rotterdam, which plays in the Eredivisie, the top tier in Dutch football. Founded as Wilhelmina in 1908, the club changed to various names before settling on being called after its ...

aged 10, and had attracted interest from several

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 Foo ...

clubs by the age of 16. In September 2014, Chong took part in the

Manchester Premier Cup The Manchester Premier Cup (also known as the Frank Hannah Manchester Premier Cup) is an annual English football knockout tournament involving teams from Greater Manchester, England. It is a County Cup competition of the Manchester Footba ...

at the Carrington Training Ground, where he was spotted by

scouts. In early 2016, Chong was on the verge of joining Chelsea.

Manchester United

Youth

In April 2016, Chong announced that he was to join Manchester United after Feyenoord failed to "make a plan" for him. The transfer was made official three months later upon receiving international clearance. Initially linking up with the Under-18s, Chong scored his club's only goal of their 2016–17 FA Youth Cup campaign as they suffered a third round exit to

Southampton Southampton () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire, S ...

. The following month, he was ruled out for the remainder of the season after suffering a

cruciate ligament Cruciate ligaments (also cruciform ligaments) are pairs of ligaments arranged like a letter X. They occur in several joints of the body, such as the knee joint and the atlanto-axial joint. In a fashion similar to the cords in a toy Jacob's ...

injury. Making his return 10 months later for the Under-23s, Chong went on to be named the Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year in May 2018.

Senior

In July 2018, Chong was called up to the first team for their pre-season tour in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. In their opening game, he featured as a second-half substitute in a 1–1 draw against

Club América Club de Fútbol América S.A. de C.V., commonly known as Club América or simply América, is a professional football club based in Mexico City. Nicknamed ''Las Águilas'' (The Eagles), it competes in Liga MX, the top tier of Mexican football. ...

, followed by starting in their goalless draw against the

San Jose Earthquakes The San Jose Earthquakes are an American professional soccer team based in San Jose, California. The Earthquakes compete as a member club of the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). Originally as the San Jose Clash, the franchis ...

. On 23 October, he was named as an unused substitute for the first time in United's 1–0 defeat to

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football league system. Founded in ...

in the Champions League. Following the appointment of

Ole Gunnar Solskjær Ole Gunnar Solskjær (; born 26 February 1973) is a Norwegian professional football manager and former player who played as a forward who last managed Premier League club Manchester United. As a player, Solskjær spent the majority of his ...

as caretaker manager, Chong made his competitive debut replacing Juan Mata in a 2–0

victory against

on 5 January. At the end of the season, he was named the Denzil Haroun Reserve Player of the Year award, becaming the first player since Giuseppe Rossi to win the award the year after being named the Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year. On 9 March 2020, Chong signed a new contract to keep him at the club until 2022, with the option to extend a further year.

Werder Bremen and Club Brugge loans

On 16 August 2020, Chong joined

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footbal ...

club

on a season-long loan. On 12 September, he scored his first goal in his first competitive match for Werder Bremen against

FC Carl Zeiss Jena FC Carl Zeiss Jena is a German football club based in Jena, Thuringia. Formed in 1903 and initially associated with the Carl Zeiss AG factory, they were one of the strongest clubs in East Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s, winning the DDR-Ober ...

in the

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

. Chong's loan was cut short in January 2021. Chong joined

Belgian First Division A The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 tea ...

club

on loan on 30 January, and scored on his debut four days later in a

Belgian Cup The Belgian Cup (french: link=no, Coupe de Belgique; nl, Beker van België []; german: link=no, Belgischer Fußballpokal) is the main Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in Belgium, run by the Belgia ...

game against Olsa Brakel.

Birmingham City (loan)

On 9 July 2021, Chong joined

on a season-long loan. However, he spent pre-season ahead of the 2021–22 campaign at his parent club, and joined Birmingham in time for the start of the Championship season. He made his debut for Birmingham in a 1–0 win over Sheffield United on 7 August, and two weeks later, he made two assists in a 5–0 win over

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1 ...

. On 2 November 2021, Chong returned to Manchester United for his rehabilitation following surgery on a serious groin injury. He returned to Birmingham in February 2022, and two minutes into his first start after his return, away to Bristol City, he opened the scoring in a 2–1 win; it was his only goal for the club. He lasted another month before a hamstring injury kept him out until the last match of the season.

Birmingham City

On 1 September 2022, Chong signed a four-year contract with

for an undisclosed fee.

International career

Chong played youth international football for the Netherlands at under-15, under-16, under-17, under-19,

under-20 Junior is a category of athletics in which athletes compete under the age of 20 years. Countries all around the world compete in athletics. World Junior Athletics Competitions are held every two years which contain the best junior competitors in ...

and under-21 levels. He represented the under-17 national team at the

2016 UEFA European Under-17 Championship The 2016 UEFA European Under-17 Championship was the 15th edition of the UEFA European Under-17 Championship (34th edition if the Under-16 era is included), the annual European international youth football championship contested by the men's under- ...

and scored the only goal in the quarter-final victory against Sweden. In June 2021, Chong accepted a call-up to the Curaçao national team for their

2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 16th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial international men's soccer championship of the North, Central American, and Caribbean region organized by CONCACAF. The tournament was originally scheduled t ...

preliminary squad. However, he was not included in the final squad, which subsequently withdrew from the tournament due to an outbreak of

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 quickl ...

Career statistics

Honours

Club Brugge *

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 ...

Individual *UEFA European Under-17 Championship Team of the Tournament: 2016 *

: 2017–18 *

Denzil Haroun Reserve Player of the Year Manchester United Football Club Under-21s is the most senior of Manchester United's youth teams and the club's former reserve team. They play in the Premier League 2, the highest tier of the Professional Development League. The team is effective ...

: 2018–19 * Premier League 2 Player of the Month: December 2019

References

External links

Profile
at ManUtd.com
Ons Oranje U21 Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chong, Tahith 1999 births Living people People from Willemstad Dutch footballers Curaçao footballers Netherlands under-21 international footballers Netherlands youth international footballers Association football wingers Manchester United F.C. players SV Werder Bremen players Club Brugge KV players Birmingham City F.C. players Premier League players Bundesliga players Belgian Pro League players English Football League players Dutch people of Curaçao descent Dutch people of Chinese descent Curaçao people of Chinese descent Sportspeople of Chinese descent Dutch expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Belgium Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Germany Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Dutch expatriate sportspeople in England Dutch expatriate sportspeople in Germany