Naby Laye Keita Biography
Naby Laye Keta is a professional footballer from Guinea. He was born on February 10, 1995, and plays as a central midfielder for Liverpool in the Premier League and the Guinea national team.
Achievements
In 2013, Naby started his professional career. His first team as a pro player was Ligue 2 team FC Istres. A year later, he moved to Red Bull Salzburg and won the Austrian Football Bundesliga and Austrian Cup in both seasons. Then, in 2016, he moved to RB Leipzig, where he made the Bundesliga team of the season in his first year and the UEFA Europa League team of the season in his second. Finally, he agreed to join Liverpool in 2017 and moved there a year later. The following season, he won the FIFA Club World Cup and the Premier League. In 2012, Keta made his debut for Guinea at the senior level. He has over 40 caps and was on their team in the 2015, 2019, and 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
As an international player
Keta’s first game for the Guinea national team was on December 14, 2012, against Sierra Leone. It was a qualifying game for the 2014 African Nations Championship. He scored the first goal for his team in a 1-1 draw on the road. Keta was one of the 23 players Michel Dussuyer sent to Equatorial Guinea for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. However, in the first game, against the Ivory Coast, Gervinho hit him in the face. As a result, he got handed a red card.
Keta scored his first international goal in three years on November 12, 2015, in the first leg of the second round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It was a 1–0 win against Namibia on the road. Three days later, in the second leg, which took place in Morocco instead of Guinea because of the Ebola virus outbreak, he scored again in a 2–0 win.
Manager Paul Put picked Keta to attend the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. There, he got an injury. Then, in January 2022, Keta helped Guinea get into the 16th round of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon. Because of how he played, he made it into the best eleven players in the tournament’s group stage. But Guinea was knocked out when they lost to Gambia in a game Keta couldn’t play in because he had too many yellow cards.
Personal life and controversies
Petit Keta, who is Naby’s younger brother, used to play for Inter Leipzig in Germany. It was said in October 2018 that he had been training at Liverpool’s Academy. But he was not given a contract. In 2017, Keta faced the accusation of using fake papers. The German newspaper Bild said he had shown two fake Guinean driver’s licenses to get a German license in early December 2016 and again six weeks later. As a result, the district court in Leipzig (Amtsgericht Leipzig) gave him a fine of €415,000 based on Keta’s estimated annual income of around €3 million. The lawyer for Keta has filed an appeal. The penalty was cut to €250,000 by the appeals court.
During the Guinean coup d’état of September 2021, Keta, his teammates from Guinea, and the team they were playing against from Morocco were all stuck. Everyone got home safely.
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