Ten Fast Facts to help you get to know West Ham United's new France international midfielder Dimitri Payet
Ten Fast Facts to help you get to know West Ham United's new France international midfielder Dimitri Payet!
- Dimitri Payet has more than 117,000 Twitter followers. You can start following him now at @dimpayet17
- Dimitri Payet’s home island of Reunion is situated in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar and about 110 miles southwest of its nearest neighbour Mauritius. As a French overseas department, it is also the outermost region of the European Union.
- Dimitri Payet won the 2004 Coupe de la Réunion, starting AS Excelsior’s 2-1 win over US Stade Tamponnaise in the final.
- Dimitri Payet initially signed for French side Nantes as an amateur in 2005, playing for the club’s reserve team in the Championnat de France amateur, the fourth level of football in the country.
- The midfielder has played in the UEFA Champions League on 15 occasions for two different clubs – Lille and Marseille.
- Dimitri Payet made his senior France debut as a substitute in a 2-0 UEFA Euro 2012 qualifying win over Romania on 9 October 2010.
- Dimitri Payet and Morgan Amalfitano were both members of Marseille squad for a short period in summer 2014, prior to Amalfitano’s move to West Ham United.
- The 28-year-old chalked up a Ligue 1 high 17 assists in 36 appearances for Marseille in 2014/15.
- Dimitri Payet received a statistically-calculated WhoScored.com rating of 7.62 last season – the fourth-highest individual rating of players in France’s Ligue 1.
- Dimitri Payet was voted into the Ligue 1 Team of the Year in both 2012/13 and 2014/15.