About Mousa Dembélé (Belgian footballer)
Moussa Sidi Yaya Dembélé (born 16 July 1987), known as Mousa Dembélé, is a Belgian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. Dembélé started his career at Belgian Pro League team Germinal Beerschot before spells at Eredivisie sides Willem II and AZ in the Netherlands. He won the league title and the Johan Cruyff Shield with the latter in 2009. Dembélé transferred to Premier League side Fulham in 2010 before joining Tottenham Hotspur for a fee of £15 million in August 2012. He was ranked 91st in The Guardian's list of the 100 best current footballers in 2012. Dembélé's skills in midfield have led to him being described by former teammates and other professional footballers as having some of the best ball control and dribbling skills of his era. Dembélé accumulated 82 caps for the Belgium national team from 2006 to 2018. Dembélé uses the spelling "Mousa" for his first name (e.g. on his Twitter account), and so do his club, national team and most news articles about him. In a 2018 interview he further clarified that his first name was accidentally misspelled "Mousa" when he had to renew his passport one time and then just decided to keep on using it that way. The 2008–09 season started disappointingly as well for Dembélé's team after two defeats, but then AZ started to win more games and eventually won the championship.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.