Ramy Bensebaini

The 29-year-old defender has been under contract with Borussia Dortmund since July 2023. He previously played for Borussia Mönchengladbach. As of June 2024 (the cut-off point for all statistics), he has made 25 appearances in all competitions for BVB (no goals / one assist).

“My job is to prevent goals from being scored,’’ said Ramy Bensebaini. But that doesn’t prevent him from making waves going forward, as he seems to do remarkably often against big-name opponents. Twelve of his 23 goals in the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal (all for Gladbach) have come against Bayern Munich (four), Borussia Dortmund, Frankfurt (three each) and Leipzig (two). He has also netted twice in the UEFA Champions League, including a goal against 2023 finalists Inter Milan. After appearing for just a single season in Europe’s elite club competition during his time at Gladbach (2019 to 2023), the Algeria international is now looking forward to having a permanent place at the top table with Borussia Dortmund. Not long after the final whistle had blown on the 2022/23 season, he signed a four-year deal with BVB. Why? “That’s an easy one: because Dortmund are one of the biggest clubs in Germany and across the world. I spoke at length with sporting director Sebastian Kehl. He sold the project very well,’’ said Bensebaini in an interview with BVB-TV. Privately, the Algerian describes himself as someone who doesn’t like to go out and prefers to spend time at home.

Bensebaini is a straightforward guy and won a strong 62% of his challenges in 2023/24. He committed only 12 fouls and was himself stopped unfairly 29 times. The Algerian possesses good technical capabilities and always has a trick up his sleeve, especially when receiving the ball and controlling high balls.

Bensebaini was born and raised in the city of Constantine in eastern Algeria. At 12 years of age, he moved to the capital Algiers to join the youth set-up of Paradou AC. There, a great emphasis was placed on ball control. “The most important thing for them was the first touch. They wanted us to receive the ball perfectly and then make the right decision in how we played it on,” he explained in a September 2020 interview with the news portal Spox. During his time at Paradou, he also experienced training methods which would be deemed unconventional by European standards. For example, the youngsters trained and played barefoot – and even without a goalkeeper! “We had 11 outfield players. The idea was to hone our collective defending. Pressing, staying tight to your man, chasing balls down – that was what it was all about. We couldn’t let the opposition shoot, because if they did, they would score, as there was never anyone in goal to prevent the ball going in.”

At 19 years of age, he moved to Belgium to join Lierse SK. He followed this up with spells at French clubs Montpellier and Rennes, lifting the Coupe de France in 2019 with the latter thanks to a win over Paris St. Germain in the final. Bensebaini scored for Rennes in the shoot-out triumph. He also scored the winning goal in the semi-final win over Lyon. In January of that same year, he won the Africa Cup of Nations with Algeria.

In the summer of 2019, he moved to Germany to join Borussia Mönchengladbach, where he made his debut appearance in the Bundesliga on 14 September against 1. FC Köln. By May 2023, he had made a further 94 appearances and scored an impressive 19 goals. ''I love winning and hate losing,'' said Bensebaini as he summed up his sporting mentality, while immediately after putting pen to paper at BVB, he commented: “I don't need to say much about Borussia Dortmund’s pulling power. The extraordinary atmosphere at Signal Iduna Park, which pushes the team, is something that I’ve experienced myself as an opposing player.”