Mathieu Valbuena

Mathieu Valbuena is a French footballer who plays as a midfielder at Marseille.

In 2004 the footballer joined Libourne Saint-Seurin, playing in Ligue 3. In the 2005/06 season the club came third and made a historic promotion to Ligue 2, with Mathieu transferring to Olympique Marseille.

He made his debut on 19 November 2006. In the 14th round match against Valenciennes he came on as a substitution. His first goal came against Saint-Étienne in May 2007. However that was not a key season for the player as he did not appear regularly and mostly as a substitute. He featured in the starting lineup only twice.

In 2007/08 he made his UEFA Champion League debut. In the 23rd tour match of Ligue 1 Valbuena netted the brace to Caen.

In 2009 Russian clubs got interested in the footballer; however the midfielder did not bring himself to leave his club. The footballer was soon officially offered to transfer to Lokomotiv, but Valbuena emphasized several times that he didn’t intend to leave the club that summer and all transfer offers would be given consideration after Euro-2012.

On 26 May 2010 Mathieu featured for the France national team for the first time in a match against Costa Rica and scored the winner.