Jonathan PITROIPA

Jonathan Pitroipa signed for the Red and Blacks in the Summer of 2011 for 3.5 Million Euros. The winger from Burkina Faso had the perfect profile to bring back an element of creativity and madness to Antonetti’s front line. As well as his pace and his dribbling skills, Pitroipa also had the advantage of already having amassed European football experience with spells in the Bundesliga with Freiburg and then Hamburg. Unstoppable dribbler, Pitroipa often turned his opponents inside-out, but didn’t always make the right choice when it came to the final pass or shot. After a very good season and a half, crowned with the Player of the Tournament in the African Cup of Nations in 2013 with Burkina Faso, he kept his place as first-choice, but his statistics would remain on 18 goals in total for Rennes. His position at the club was weakened by the simultaneous signings of Grosicki and Ntep. He missed out on a loan deal with Stoke City in January 2014 by a matter of hours. A couple of anonymous appearances later, he joined Al-Jazira in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in July 2014.