Manuel Akanji has been fully signed by Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund on a five-year-long deal.
Prior to Manchester City, the center defender had not played for Dortmund this season and was in the final year of his deal.
The 27-year-old has committed to the defending Premier League champions through the summer of 2027 on a five-year deal. He will provide the star-studded team at the Etihad Stadium, which already has choices for center backs like Ruben Dias, John Stones, and Aymeric Laporte, even more depth.
In the past 4.5 years, Akanji has lived in Germany and made 158 appearances for Dortmund. He has earned 41 national team appearances for Switzerland, and Pep Guardiola will have another seasoned option to choose from now that it has been revealed he will wear the No. 25 shirt for the Blues.
Akanji told the club website: “I am delighted to be here and can’t wait to get started.
“City have been one of the best teams in Europe over the last few seasons. They are brilliant to watch, play an exciting brand of football and compete for trophies year in, year out, so coming here feels like the perfect next step in my career.”
“Pep Guardiola is an exceptional manager and this is an exceptional squad of players, so this is an exciting opportunity for me.
“I am really looking forward to testing myself in the Premier League and I will do everything I can to help this Club be successful.”
Although City already has four senior center backs on its roster, Aymeric Laporte has yet to play this year due to injury. Guardiola has so far in 2022–23 deployed Ruben Dias, John Stones, and Nathan Ake, but the latter is also sidelined at the moment due to injury.
Akanji moved to Dortmund from Basel in 2018 and has been a regular member of the first team ever since. Last season, he participated in 36 games across all competitions.
Although Niklas Sule from Bayern Munich and Nico Schlotterbeck from Freiburg joined the Bundesliga club in the summer, the Switzerland international was demoted in the pecking order.
Akanji joins Kalvin Phillips, Stefan Ortega, Sergio Gomez, and Erling Haaland as City’s fifth summer additions.
Manuel Akanji
A defender for Premier League club Manchester City and the Swiss national team, Manuel Obafemi Akanji was born in Switzerland on July 19, 1995.
On January 15, 2018, Akanji moved to Borussia Dortmund during the winter transfer window for an alleged cost of 18 million euros.
He agreed to a four-and-a-half-year deal that ran until June 2022. In a 7-0 victory over FC Nürnberg on September 27, Akanji scored his first goal for the team and his first Bundesliga goal.
Akanji received harsh criticism for his expensive mistakes during Dortmund’s unsuccessful 2019–20 season campaign against Bayern. Akanji was one of the major players picked out as a weak link in the team.
Manuel Akanji’s Parents
Akanji was born to a Nigerian father and a Swiss mother in Wiesendangen, Switzerland.
Although their occupations have not yet been specified, Manuel’s parents are Abimbola and Isabel Akanji, and he has two siblings, Sarah and Michelle Akanji.
Manuel Akanji Maths
Manuel Akanji, a new defender for Manchester City, is a mathematical prodigy in addition to having a superb football talent.
It has come to light that the 27-year-old Swiss international is something of a math wiz and has a remarkable aptitude for performing calculations in his brain really quickly.
Following an appearance on a Swiss television program, Akanji was compared to a pocket calculator due to his aptitude with numbers.
The official website of Borussia Dortmund was cited by Akanji as saying, “I used to enjoy doing math in my brain, and I could do it well.”
On the show entitled “Wetten, dass…?”, he was asked by a member of the audience: “What is 24 x 75?” Akanji’s immediate response was the correct answer of “1,800.”
