Ali Benarbia

Football player infobox


playername = Ali Benarbia
fullname = Ali Benarbia
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1968|10|8
cityofbirth = Oran
countryofbirth = Algeria
position = Midfielder
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1988-1995 1995-1998 1998-1999 1999-2001 2001-2003 2003-2005 2005-2006
clubs = Martigues Monaco Bordeaux Paris Saint-Germain Manchester City Al-Rayyan Nadi Qatar
caps(goals) = 201 0(23) 090 00(8) 025 00(3) 042 00(0) 071 0(11)
nationalyears = 2002-????
nationalteam = Algeria
nationalcaps(goals) =
pcupdate = 12 August 2007 (UTC)
ntupdate = 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Ali Benarbia ( _ar. علي بن عربية) (born October 8, 1968 in Oran, Algeria) is a former Algerian footballer, who came to France at a young age and began his career at FC Martigues in 1987. He was part of the side that was promoted to Ligue 1 in 1993, operating as a midfielder.

Benarbia joined AS Monaco FC in 1995, winning a championship in 1997, and then moved to FC Girondins de Bordeaux in 1998. At Bordeaux, Benarbia won the championship again in the 1998-99 season and was crowned player of the year in France. Surprisingly he was sold to Paris Saint-Germain after this triumph, although he failed to capture the same form there.

Benarbia left France in 2001 and was signed on a free transfer by Manchester City F.C., whose manager Kevin Keegan was familiar with him from when he scored two goals for Monaco against Keegan's Newcastle United. [cite book |last=Clayton |first=David |title=Everything under the blue moon: the complete book of Manchester City FC - and more! |publisher=Mainstream publishing |location=Edinburgh |date=2002 |id=ISBN 1-84018-687-9 p29] He became a firm favourite amongst the supporters as City won the Football League First Division and promotion back to the Premiership, winning the club's player of the year award and being named in the select side for the Division. He was made captain the following season, although he found the pace of the Premier League harder and was much less influential in his second season. He played his final game in a City shirt in 2003 against FC Barcelona in a game to mark the opening of the City of Manchester Stadium, before announcing his retirement.

Only five days after this announcement, on July 27, Benarbia signed up to play for Al-Rayyan of Qatar. After two years with the club, he moved on to play for Nadi Qatar [http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/newsbriefs/sports/2005/07/13/newsbrief-02] before announcing his retirement a year later.

Benarbia, a French citizen, had initially wanted to represent France internationally, although eventually he gave up and accepted the call up to the Algerian national side, making his debut at the 2002 African Cup of Nations in a Group 4 game against Burkina Faso. He has since represented his country a number of times.

Honours

* Won the Ligue 1 Player of the Year trophy in 1999
* Won the French league twice in 1997 with AS Monaco and 1999 with Bordeaux
* Won the French second division once with FC Martigues in 1993
* Chosen as the "Player of the Year" for Manchester City in the 2002/2003 campaign

References

External links

*fr icon [http://benarbia.ifrance.com/ Unofficial site]