Ousmane Diakité

Ousmane Diakité's football education came almost entirely at Red Bull Salzburg, though he barely spent a settled season there. Signed from the Malian club Yeelen Olympique in 2018, he spent his five years with Salzburg mostly out on loan, first to Liefering, then Altach, then FC St. Gallen, where an injury cut the spell short in January 2022. That pattern — moved on before he could put down roots — continued into a permanent transfer to TSV Hartberg in February 2023, and then to West Bromwich Albion in July 2024, when he arrived on a free transfer.

At The Hawthorns something settled. West Brom took up an option to extend his contract by a further year in March 2026, and three months later handed him a new three-year deal running to 2029, a vote of confidence after two years in which he had, among other things, scored his first goal for the club in December 2025.

Internationally, Diakité's story runs in reverse: the youth honours came early, the senior recognition late. He was part of the Mali side that won the Africa Cup of Nations U-20 in 2019 and reached the final of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2015. The senior call-up did not follow for years, arriving only in March 2026, when he came on as a substitute in a friendly against Russia to win his first cap.

Standing 189 cm tall, he plays in midfield, a physical profile that has followed him from the loan circuit in Austria and Switzerland through to the Championship.