User:Profavi1/BeanDean

Benedict “Bean” Dean (born 3 January 1997) is a Sammarinese professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Crystal Palace. He represented the San Marino national team between 2015 and 2020, and is the country's highest goalscorer of all time with nine goals.

Born in San Marino and raised in England, Dean began his youth career at Manchester City. He was signed by League One club Doncaster Rovers in 2014, spending four seasons there, before returning to Manchester City in 2018, where he won the Premier League and EFL Cup.

The following season, he was signed by German Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen, where he won both the league title and DFB-Pokal, before returning to the Premier League with Crystal Palace in 2020.

Having played with England up until under-18 level, he made his debut for the San Marino national team in a 1–7 UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying defeat to Slovenia in 2015, committing himself to playing for the San Marino national team. He retired from the team in 2020.

Early life
Dean was born in the City of San Marino and raised in Manchester, England. His nickname Bean derives from the name he was known by at school.

Doncaster Rovers
A Manchester City academy graduate, Edge was signed for £300,000 by Doncaster Rovers in 2014, making his first appearance and goals in the 2014–15 season. In the 2017–18 season, his fourth at the club, Dean finished the campaign with 23 goals, including a hat-trick against Shrewsbury Town, as Doncaster made the League One play-offs.

Manchester City
Dean was re-signed by Manchester City for £750,000 in the summer of 2018.

He made his Premier League debut in a 2–1 win over Newcastle United on 1 September, scoring his first goals for the club in a 5–0 victory over Accrington Stanley in the 2018–19 EFL Cup on 30 October with four second-half goals. He later scored his first Premier League goal in a 1–0 away win over West Ham United on 24 November. Dean scored his first Premier League hat-trick in a 3–0 home win over Everton on 15 December. He scored a brace on his UEFA Champions League debut, a 4–0 home win against Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of the quarter-final, on 16 April 2019.

Overall, Dean scored 19 goals and 9 assists in 15 games at Manchester City, with 8 goals and 10 appearances coming in the league. Dean also had the unique statistic of winning every single game he played in the 2018–19 season, helping them to the 2018–19 Premier League title and reaching the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final.

Bayer Leverkusen
In the summer of 2019, Dean was signed by Bundesliga team Bayer Leverkusen for €28 million on a four-year contract.

He made his debut in a 1–0 win over FC Augsburg on 25 August 2019, and scored his first goal for Leverkusen in a 3–0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on 14 September. On 4 October, he scored 5 goals and made 3 assists in a 10–0 drubbing of Schalke 04, giving Leverkusen their biggest Bundesliga win in their history. Dean scored a 91st minute equaliser away at Barcelona in the group stage of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League on 6 November, cancelling out Lionel Messi's first-half goal and rescuing a 1–1 draw for his club. The result qualified them as group winners to the round of 16, where they were knocked out by Liverpool.

Dean went on to win the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal in his only season with Leverkusen, being part of a dream team that included Kai Havertz, Gonzalo Montiel, Leon Bailey, Julián Álvarez, David Luiz, Richarlison, Julian Brandt and Axel Witsel. Though he began the season as a prolific goalscorer in the club’s campaign, Dean lost his starting position during the second half of the season due to his poor disciplinary record (four suspensions in three months), as well as due to the £25m signing of Richarlison from Everton. However, he started in Leverkusen’s 3–0 win over Bayern Munich in the 2020 DFB-Pokal Final on 23 May 2020, scoring the team’s second goal.

Dean finished his time at Leverkusen with 21 goals and 21 assists in 30 games, with 15 goals in 20 Bundesliga appearances, the third-highest total in the league after Timo Werner of RB Leipzig and Wout Weghorst of VfL Wolfsburg.

Crystal Palace
On 26 July 2020, having been told he was no longer part of Bayer Leverkusen's future plans, Dean was signed by Premier League club Crystal Palace for £23.5 million.

2020–21 season: Debut season and top-four finish
He made his debut for the club in the first game of the league season, a 2–1 home win against league champions Tottenham Hotspur on 9 August, assisting Wilfried Zaha's first goal. He scored his first goal for Palace in their next game, a 1–1 away draw with Aston Villa on 15 August. He was given a straight red card in the first half against Chelsea; the match would go on to finish as a 4–0 defeat, and Dean was dropped from the squad for several games as a result. He scored a late winner in a 2–1 away victory over Arsenal on 27 December. On 2 January 2021, Dean scored a brace in a 3–0 victory over Bury in the third round of the 2020–21 FA Cup.

Dean scored 10 goals and made 9 assists in 27 appearances for Crystal Palace over the course of the season, with 6 goals and 7 assists coming in 23 appearances in the Premier League. The club finished in 4th place, its highest ever in the Premier League, and qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history.

2021–22 season: Struggles and loss of starting place
Dean lost his starting position in the Palace squad following the signing of Vincent Aboubakar from Real Sociedad. Dean scored his first goal in the 2021–22 Premier League in a 3–0 away win against Huddersfield on 29 August. He later assisted Andros Townsend's injury-time winner against his former club Manchester City on 19 September, as well as assisting Aboubakar's goal in a 1–2 defeat to Porto in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. After a spell of poor form, he was dropped from the squad in late 2021, making just four appearances in November and December.

Despite reports of a loan move, Dean began making more regular appearances following the departure of Alexander Sørloth in January 2022. On 22 January, he scored a brace in a 2–1 win over Liverpool in the fourth round of the 2021–22 FA Cup.

International career
Having represented the England under-18s until 2015, Dean declared his allegiance to his birth country at senior level, despite the team being one of the lowest-ranked in international football, and often described as the worst national side in the history of the sport. He made his debut in a 6–0 UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying defeat to Slovenia on 27 March 2015. He scored his first goal for his country in a 2–1 qualifying defeat to Lithuania on 8 September. Upon his transfer to Manchester City in 2018, Dean became only the second ever Sammarinese player to play in a top-five European league after Massimo Bonini, and the first in 27 years.

Dean made 41 appearances for the team and scored 9 goals, making him the country's all-time record goalscorer. He retired from the team following a 0–0 draw with Gibraltar in the 2020–21 UEFA Nations League on 14 November 2020.

Style of play
Dean's goalscoring style is typically through run-ins and goals from the outside of the box, preferring not to operate as a traditional target man. A playmaking striker, he is also known for his assist-making, and was often been deployed by managers Pep Guardiola and Peter Bosz as a false 9.

Discipline
Dean's disciplinary record has come under some scrutiny; he received the most bookings of any forward during the 2019–20 Bundesliga season, and was notably dropped by Bosz as a result of his numerous suspensions during his time at Leverkusen, despite his impressive goalscoring form. He was similarly dropped for several games by Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson after being sent off in his fourth match for the club.

Honours
Manchester City
 * EFL Cup: 2018–19
 * Premier League: 2018–19
 * UEFA Champions League runner-up: 2018–19

Bayer Leverkusen
 * Bundesliga: 2019–20
 * DFB-Pokal: 2019–20

Individual
 * Football League Young Player of the Year: 2015–16
 * Premier League Player of the Month: December 2018
 * Bundesliga Player of the Month: October 2019