Ismaïla Sarr was born on 25 February, 1998 in Saint-Louis, Senegal. He is a Senegalese professional footballer who plays as winger for French club Stade Rennais in Ligue 1 and Senegal national football team.
Sarr started his football career with Senegalese football club Génération Foot.
On 13 July 2016, Sarr signed his first professional contract with FC Metz for five years. He made his league debut on 13 August 2016 against Lille OSC at Stade Saint-Symphorien, the FC Metz’s home ground, which Metz won by 3–2. In this match, he played 20 minutes, after he was substituted for Florent Mollet.
On 11 September 2016, Sarr played a league game against FC Nantes as a starter and he played a whole game and he was shown a yellow card.
On 26 July 2017, Ismaïla signed a four-year contract with Ligue 1 side Rennes. The transfer fee paid to Metz was reported as €17 or 20 million, depending on the source. He picked the transfer to Rennes over a move to FC Barcelona.
Sarr has represented his country at Senegal national under-23 football team. In 2015, he played in 2015 Africa U-23 Cup of Nations. At that time, his age was only 17. He contributed that Senegal finished the competition in a fourth place, playing 3 games.
He played for the first time with Senegal national football team for a match against Namibia in September 2016 in Dakar (2–0) for 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualification, for which Senegal qualified.
As a symbol, it comes into play in the 67th minute in place of the former resident of Génération Foot and Metz, Sadio Mané. On 8 January 2017, Sarr scored his first international goal in a friendly match against Libya national football team in Stade Municipal de Kintélé, Brazzaville.
In May 2018 he was named in Senegal’s 23 man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
