Algerian agrees contract until the summer
- Huddersfield Town signs Karim Matmour
- Club receives international clearance for Algerian international
- Comments from Head Coach David Wagner
Huddersfield Town has today completed the signing of free agent Karim Matmour on a contract running until the end of the 2015/16 season.
The Club has the option of a further season’s extension at the conclusion of the campaign.
Matmour, who is 30 years old, has played 30 times for Algeria and almost 300 games across the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
He joins Town as a free agent having left his previous club Al-Arabi of Kuwait, who he joined in the summer after leaving Kaiserslautern.
Karim will wear shirt number 10 this season.
Huddersfield Town Head Coach David Wagner commented:
“Karim is a good player, who I know well from his time in Germany. He is quick, has great endurance and is a very good person also, which is very important. It is not normal that we would be able to get a player of his quality with no transfer fee.
“He can play in all four attacking positions; on the right, on the left, as a number 10 or number nine. This strengthens our forwards and will help me make good decisions to keep them fresh.
“He knows the ideas we want to bring onto the pitch and should only need a couple of weeks for his fitness to be ideal; he has been training with Strasbourg for some time and is like Jonathan Hogg in that his base of fitness is very good. This is one of his main qualities. His English is also good, which is important.”
Born on 25 June 1985 in France, Karim – who stands at just under six feet tall – started his career at the Academy of hometown club RC Strasbourg, but moved to Germany to turn professional at SC Freiburg.
He played 83 times for the Club in the Bundesliga 2, scoring 11 goals across three seasons. He also earned his first of 30 caps for Algeria during his time at Freiburg.
His form earned him a move to newly promoted Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach for a reported fee of €2 million in June 2008, where he signed a four year contract. He ended up playing three seasons in Germany’s top flight, making 82 appearances.
As a Gladbach player, Karim represented Algeria in the 2010 World Cup – playing against England in Group C in the tournament in South Africa – and in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, helping the Greens to a fourth placed finish.
In July 2011, Matmour joined Eintracht Frankfurt for an undisclosed fee and helped his new club gain promotion to the Bundesliga in his first season, scoring six goals in 30 appearances. Another 22 Bundesliga appearances followed in 2012/13.
Karim joined Bundesliga 2 side Kaiserslautern in the summer of 2013, for whom he made 64 appearances.
In total, Karim has made 101 appearances in German top division – scoring five times – and has 163 Bundesliga 2 appearances, scoring 21 goals.
At the expiry of his Kaiserslautern contract in June 2015, he joined Al-Arabi of Kuwait on a two year deal which ended early.
An interview with Karim will appear on HTTV shortly!
