Alban Lafont
Squad number 23 · Panathinaikos
Their 2026 World Cup
Alban Lafont travelled to the 2026 World Cup with Ivory Coast, wearing number 23, without ever getting on the pitch. His side played 4 matches (2 wins and 2 defeats) and bowed out in the round of 32, beaten by Norway 2-1.
The goalkeeping job went to Y. Fofana (4 matches, 360′).
Another 4 players in the Ivory Coast squad ended up the same way, without a single minute. The full run is on the Ivory Coast team page.
Biography
Alban-Marc Lafont (born 23 January 1999) is a professional footballer who plays as goalkeeper for Ligue 2 club Nantes. Born in Burkina Faso and raised in France, he plays for the Ivory Coast national team. Having progressed through the academy of AS Lattoise, Lafont signed for Toulouse in 2014 where he became the youngest goalkeeper ever to play in Ligue 1 upon making his debut the following year. He went on to make over 100 appearances for the club across all competitions before joining Fiorentina in 2018. In 2019, he returned to France in a loan deal to Nantes; the deal was made permanent in 2021.
Early life Lafont was born in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to a French father and Burkinabé Dyula mother. His parents separated when he was nine years old and Lafont moved to France to live with his father in Herault. His mother remained in Burkina Faso, where she later became a Member of Parliament for the People's Movement for Progress in the Burkina Faso National Assembly. Lafont comes from a sporting family.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) · text adapted from the article.
See all the tournament stats on the World Cup data hub.
Photo: Bryan Berlin · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)