Hannibal Mejbri: From La Banane to World Cup Glory

The Eagles of Carthage have carried one of football’s great nicknames for decades. Now they have a player whose very name feels carved from the same stone.

Hannibal Mejbri, 23 years old and already a central figure for Tunisia, steps into the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a burden and a story that stretch far beyond the touchline. His first name nods to Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general who drove war elephants over the Alps and stared down Rome itself. The modern Hannibal is trying to drag his country over a different mountain: the barrier of the group stage, a summit Tunisia have never conquered.

From La Banane to the world

The journey starts far from Carthage, in Paris’ 20th arrondissement. Dense, noisy, working-class. A district stitched together by immigration and held together by football.

Mejbri was born there to Tunisian parents and raised in a neighbourhood he remembers as a crossroads of North and West Africa: “many Tunisians, many Algerians, many Moroccans, lots of Senegalese, Malians as well.” In those streets, the ball did the talking.

One particular block of flats curves so sharply it earned a nickname of its own: La Banane. Concrete, graffiti, metal balconies. Not the sort of place usually associated with World Cups and Champions League lights, yet it became the cradle of his game.

“Instead of going straight up to my house, I used to stay out and play football until night fell,” he recalls in the series World at Their Feet, which tracks emerging talents on the road to the 2026 World Cup. No academy blueprint. No grand design. “I was a normal boy, there was no master plan. I had my friends, I was focused on my life as a kid.”

The neighbourhood, though, knew he was different. Childhood friend Hubert Mbuyi remembers the image before the statistics: big hair, big blonde hair, the kind you spot instantly across a crowded cage pitch. “He had a unique style,” Mbuyi says. “So everyone knew him and had a lot of expectations for him. Where you could find a pitch and a ball, you will find Hannibal.”

A prodigy on the move

Paris FC spotted him first. He joined their academy at six and stayed almost seven years, the raw edges of La Banane slowly being shaped by structure and competition. A short stint at Boulogne-Billancourt followed, a familiar path for a gifted Parisian teenager.

Then came Monaco.

In 2018, the Ligue 1 club paid €1 million to bring the 15-year-old into their academy, a figure that underlined how highly French football rated him. The contrast hit him the moment he arrived. “I could feel the richness of Monaco,” he says. “So yeah, it was a little bit of a shift, a little dream, and I learned a lot there.”

The experience was not perfect. By his own account, it was not the happiest spell of his young career. But the talent was impossible to ignore. Bayern Munich watched. Paris Saint-Germain watched. Barcelona watched. Europe’s elite circled.

He chose Manchester United.

In August 2019, at 16, Mejbri signed for the three-time Champions League winners and walked into Old Trafford’s academy with the same hair, the same edge, and a much bigger stage. His rise through the ranks was brisk. By 2021, he had his Premier League debut. Two years later, in September 2023, he delivered the moment every academy player dreams of: his first top-flight goal for United, a crisp strike in a 3–1 home defeat to Brighton.

The team were 3–0 down when he scored. The goal did not change the result, but it changed something in him. “I still get chills,” he says. “I don’t know why I started to celebrate when we were losing 3–0, and you can see in my celebration that I had a certain rage in me and that I let go of everything when I scored.”

It was less about the scoreboard and more about release — a teenager from La Banane roaring under the lights of Old Trafford.

Choosing a flag with the heart

On the international stage, Mejbri had options. France capped him at under-16 and under-17 level, a familiar route for a Paris-born prospect. The French system knew him. Rated him. Could have kept him.

He walked away.

In 2021, when Tunisia called, he committed to his parents’ homeland and never looked back. “I joined Tunisia because I chose with my heart,” he explains. “Even though I lived in France, it doesn’t take away the love I have for France. But I find that the love I have for Tunisia is greater.”

The decision resonated far beyond his own career. Tunisia gained not just a gifted midfielder but a symbol — a player raised in Europe, shaped by elite clubs, who still turned back towards the red and white of the Eagles of Carthage.

The numbers underline how quickly he has become indispensable. He is already 44 caps into his international career and has twice been named African Revelation of the Year at the Africa d’Or awards. For a player still in his early twenties, that is not a promise; it is a track record.

Yet every time he pulls on the Tunisian shirt, his mind drifts back to that curved block of flats in Paris. “When I represent my country, I also represent my neighbourhood,” he says. “Because I know that I will represent them, and so all of that, it’s a bit related to pride.”

For those back home, the feeling is mutual. “All Tunisians are proud of him,” says Mbuyi. “Because in the end, he’s a kid from the neighbourhood. When he plays matches, everyone focuses on the match. We’re all watching Hannibal’s hair on the pitch. We try to spot him every time.”

Giving back to La Banane

Success has not loosened his grip on his roots. Every summer, Mejbri returns to La Banane and turns the estate into a festival of football. He organises a tournament, brings the shirts, brings the noise, brings the sense that the gap between a Paris courtyard and a World Cup stadium is not so impossible after all.

Last year alone, he handed out around 100 shirts. In that part of the 20th arrondissement, you do not have to look far to see his name on a back. “You can just walk around here and find two or three people wearing his shirt,” Mbuyi says.

For the kids who gather around the makeshift pitches, he is more than a player. He is proof. “Hannibal is a great example of what the people look for in this area,” Mbuyi adds. “Because of him, the young kids can dream.”

Now the dream stretches to the biggest stage of all. Tunisia arrive at the 2026 World Cup still chasing that first escape from the group. The Eagles of Carthage have known frustration, near misses, and exits that stung. This time, they travel with a midfielder whose story is already bigger than the tournament.

Two thousand years ago, a Carthaginian general crossed mountains and fell just short of his ultimate goal. In 2026, another Hannibal will try to finish a different kind of journey — from La Banane to the knockouts, carrying a neighbourhood, a nickname, and a nation on his shoulders.