Madi Monamay Nsosemo

There is a match against Venezia in January 2024 buried in Madi Monamay Nsosemo's record that says more about him than any list of clubs: the defender came off the bench for Bayer Leverkusen on the 79th minute of a friendly, a brief appearance in a season the German side finished by winning the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal.

The path to Leverkusen ran through Belgian academy football almost from the start. Monamay moved through Tienen-Hageland, Woluwe-Zaventem and OH Leuven as a schoolboy before Genk took him in for three years, a stretch that ended with the move to Germany in 2022. There he trained with Leverkusen's youth sides, working toward a first-team place that stayed just out of reach in league and cup football.

That changed in July 2024, when Monamay signed a three-year contract with PSV Eindhoven. The deal placed him with Jong PSV, the club's reserve side in the Eerste Divisie, rather than the first team — a step down in visibility but a route to regular football. It worked: across the 2024/25 season, he held down a starting spot in Jong PSV's back line, the kind of consistent run-out he had not had in Germany.

A right-footed centre-back at 185cm, Monamay now wears the number 4 shirt for the PSV reserves, still built around the profile that took him through four Belgian academies before he turned sixteen.