CHEMSDINE TALBI: WHO ARE YOU?

With Sunderland on the verge of completing another signing, we took a deep dive into the career of our soon to be newest recruit, Chemsdine Talbi. We’ve reportedly agreed to pay a fee of €23 million (around £19.9 million), which includes add-ons, to Club Brugge for his services and he is expected to join on a five-year deal. Here’s a rundown of his career:

Born in Sambreville, Belgium, in 2005, Talbi has spent virtually his entire career with Club Brugge, aside from a brief spell with another Belgian club called Royale Union Tubize-Braine during his youth football days. He’s been with FCB since 2015 and made his senior debut in 2022. Like a lot of Belgian Pro League clubs, Club Brugges’ reserve team play in the second tier and so his first match was for them against the reserves of Standard de Liège, and he scored his teams’ second goal in a 2-2 draw. His first match for the senior team came in early 2023, coming off of the bench in a 1-0 defeat to KV Kortrijk. In his first season playing senior football, he featured in 33 matches, scoring five and chipping in with six assists. 28 of those games were played for the reserves and the other five in the top flight.

His progress stalled quite significantly in the following campaign, with torn knee ligaments limiting him to nine games total (again a mix of senior and reserve appearances) and a goal and assist each. Talbi did manage to make a brief cameo in the second leg of the Europa Conference League quarter final however. Although his club won the league title in 2024, he wasn’t awarded a medal as he didn’t reach the required appearances threshold.

Last season, the Moroccan did get his hands on a trophy and he became a frequent sight for Club Brugge, making 44 appearances in all competitions, all for the senior team and including 11 games in the Champions League. In the knockout stages of the UCL he did well against Atalanta, in the first leg of the first round post-group stage, he assisted the opening goal in a 2-1 victory and then in the reverse leg he did even better, netting two of their three goals as they saw off their Serie A opponents 3-1 in the match and 5-2 on aggregate. The aforementioned silverware came via the Belgian Cup, in which he played in every round except the quarter final. For good measure he also got an assist in the Belgian Super Cup, unfortunately his side were still defeated. His goal contribution tally for the season came to seven goals and five assists.

On the international stage, Chemsdine started out representing the country of his birth, earning caps at U15, U17 and U18 level. Most notably he was picked for Belgium’s squad for the U17 Euros in 2021. The attacker has not yet been capped by Morocco, having only changed his allegiance in March of this year.

Operating primarily as a right winger, he can also play on the opposite wing and as an attacking midfielder. There is a risk he will miss a number of games in December and January as his country has qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations.