Tamir Cohen (Hebrew: תמיר כהן‎; born March 4, 1984 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli football midfielder who currently plays for Bolton Wanderers. He is the son of former Maccabi Tel Aviv and Liverpool player Avi Cohen.

[edit] Career

Cohen started his career in Maccabi Tel Aviv's youth team where in 2001-02 he won the double. His first game in Ligat ha'Al was in November 2002 during Maccabi's 1-0 win over Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, when he came on as a substitute. He scored his first goal against Maccabi Petah Tikva in a 2-1 in the Toto Cup, where he scored the winning goal.

Cohen made 7 appearances for the Israel national under-21 football team. His first appearance on the U-21 team was on the losing side to Cyprus.

On January 11, 2007 Cohen moved to Maccabi Netanya.

[edit] Bolton

 On January 1, 2008 he transferred to Bolton Wanderers of the English Premier League. He made his Bolton debut in the 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Sheffield United, wearing the squad number 25, previously occupied by Abdoulaye Faye.His first English Premier League goal was scored on March 2nd 2008 in a match against his father's former club Liverpool at the Reebok stadium, which ended in a 3-1 win for Liverpool.  

The 25-year-old made 11 appearances in his first season in English football. But Cohen has played a peripheral role for Bolton Wanderers this campaign with a longstanding thigh injury keeping him out of action for over five months.

The Israeli man eventually returned to the first team fold in the final couple of months of the season, earning his first start against Aston Villa at the Reebok Stadium on April 25. Cohen stole all the headlines with a vibrant midfield performance and capped off the afternoon with a neatly taken equalizer to earn Bolton a vital point.

He celebrated his goal by saluting his friends and family who were sat in the West Stand after he had been handed a 'lucky shekel' to put down his sock.

Cohen hopes that his injury problems are now behind him and that Wanderers fans will see more of his footballing talents next season. He said: "It's been very frustrating because it's not easy for a football player to be injured. But that is football and you need to live with that. Now hopefully I won't be out anymore while I'm with Bolton."

He played for the Israel national football team against Croatia on October 13, 2007. Tamir is of Italian ancestry and holds an Italian passport.

[edit] Statistics

[edit] Honours

• Israeli Premier League (1):
  • 2002-2003

• State Cup (1):
  • 2005

[edit] External links

• Tamir Cohen career stats at Soccerbase

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