The young talent who caused Real Madrid to break its transfer record

"Dear Roxane. Remember when they bought me a fake Manchester United shirt and I wrote 'Ronaldo 7' on the back with a black marker? We didn't know what wealth or poverty was. We only knew happiness." When Cristiano Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid for 94 million euros, the boy Yan Diomande from Abidjan was two and a half years old. He was approaching the age of seven when Los Blancos broke their record to bring in Gareth Bale for 100 million. Diomande began to show sparks of a young star in a club far from home when Eden Hazard arrived in Madrid for 120 million, and in 2023, when Real raised the bar again and paid 127 million to land Jude Bellingham, the winger from Ivory Coast was already playing in an academy in the USA that had scouted him. Now he is at the top of this list himself, at age 19, the most expensive signing in the history of the Spanish giant club, which paid Leipzig 140 million euros for him.

This breakthrough happened with tremendous speed. At age 18, he moved to the Spanish Leganes after its American owners emphasized signing young talents from Africa. Within half a year, he jumped from the reserve team to the first division (although he was relegated with it and was responsible for a fateful miss that determined its fate), where he made his debut against Real. Leipzig paid his release clause of 20 million euros last summer, and one super-impressive season in the Bundesliga launched him to the Bernabeu.

"Remember when we lived 25 people in one house in Abidjan? Mom wanted to watch soap operas, everyone else wanted to watch movies. Remember when I pretended to be asleep, and then snuck out after midnight? I turned the volume down low, watched football matches in the dark, and dreamed. I don't know if I ever told you, but I and other kids would steal potatoes because we were so hungry. Two kids would distract the seller, and 18 others would run away with two potatoes. They weren't even good, but the taste was amazing. It's still my favorite food, with a little oil."

When Borja Jimenez was the coach of Leganes, he encountered a special and unexpected talent, as he told ESPN: "We held a practice game against our reserve team. When Diomande got the ball, he went at the defenders and passed them, and did it again and again. He didn't restrain himself, even though he was playing against the first team. He didn't care who he was facing," said Jimenez. "I have the video of that game, it's worth watching." The day after that game, Diomande was already training under him. Leganes eventually went down, but the same impression Diomande left in that practice game, he left in the half-season that made him a sought-after European commodity. This year he was ranked sixth in Germany in goal involvements — 12 goals and eight assists — and led the Bundesliga with 214 one-on-one attempts, of which he succeeded in an impressive 55 percent. He was so disciplined and precise, arriving at all training sessions early, that all the Germans on the team started calling him "The German."

But it wasn't just this season. Between the last round in Germany and the completion of the deal yesterday, the World Cup also happened. And there, with every passing minute, the price of the one who was marked in advance as a hot commodity only kept jumping. In the strange group that included Germany, Ecuador, and Curacao, and later in the loss to Norway in the round of 32, Ivory Coast was in Diomande's hands. It sounds strange, because he finished the tournament with only one assist in total, but the winger looked almost from the first moment like a player who would win the Ballon d'Or within a few years. In this World Cup, all the fans who only heard about his exploits in Leipzig or settled for short highlight videos saw with their own eyes how he alone controlled the pace of the game, took the responsibility from the hands of veteran and experienced players (like his attack partner Nicolas Pepe, who until last week was the most expensive African in history), and understood exactly the complexities of momentum, flow, and pattern. It was amazing to watch. Of course, there are the obvious things — mesmerizing dribbling and tremendous speed — but it was the more mature aspects that ignited the imagination. Diomande managed a very talented, albeit slightly young and naive, national team at age 19, and in his first World Cup looked much better than some of the stars who reached this stage for the sixth time. This is not a matter of "the next big potential" or "the next intriguing youngster." There is no question here. Diomande could become one of the greatest players in the world this year.

"Remember when you used to tell all my friends from the neighborhood 'Why did you stop training? Yan is not going to buy you cars. You need to keep working hard.' You were 10 years old, and already my agent." It's not that the move from there to Real was smooth — because when you have such a diamond in hand, everyone wants a piece of it. As a teenager, he had trials at clubs in the UK, and even received compliments from Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze when he trained at Crystal Palace, but never received a contract, likely due to excessive demands from his representatives. The former player from Ivory Coast, Max Gradel, was the one who represented Diomande first, but in accordance with the star status the boy is gaining, he moved to the "Roc Nation" agency of rapper Jay-Z, which represents multitudes of superstars — mainly from American sports — as well as senior European footballers like Kevin De Bruyne and Marcus Rashford. Gradel claims that the move was made in improper ways, and the matter is currently being investigated by FIFA. Apparently, the case led to a delay in signing with Real.

Another player represented by "Roc Nation" is Vinicius. Throughout the past week, Arsenal increased efforts to exploit the stalemate in the Brazilian's negotiations with Real and submitted an offer of 120 million euros, a sum hard to refuse — but despite the constant ups and downs in the relationship with Vinicius, Real refused to give up and extended his contract for six years. Now, it's an amazing attacking triangle on paper, with Kylian Mbappe in the middle, Diomande on the right, and the Brazilian on the left. Diomande is a right-footed player who excelled at Leipzig on the right wing, but in the World Cup, he did a fantastic job on the left side. He could have closed a corner even in the event that Vini had left — but Mourinho won both.

"In childhood, I always played in white plastic sandals. Even now I play in them when I return home, it's a tradition. Remember when they bought me my first pair of football shoes and I slept with them? Even before I got them, you told everyone: 'My brother will be the greatest footballer in the world.' Remember when we used to sit and dream of moving to France? How I will be a rich footballer with many cars and a big house, and you won't have to worry about anything. You always believed I could be the next Cristiano, even when everyone laughed."

Even in the academy in Florida, after not understanding a word in the first months, the coaches talked about Diomande's extraordinary maturity, even in the way he treated younger children, just like a big brother, and about how he didn't look like a teenager on the pitch — calm, sharp-eyed, in control of himself. Todd Eason, his first coach there, said that once the training and games started, it wasn't a problem: "It was easy for him to communicate through football," Eason told Flashscore. "It's not easy to move to another country at 15, but he adapted faster than expected. The thing that stood out most was his game intelligence, he grasped everything quickly."

But Real Madrid is a different world. He played in the first division in Spain, but not in such a team. He played in the Bundesliga, but wasn't on many people's radar. He played in the World Cup, but not in a team that had many expectations. There are no places as stressful as the dressing room at the Bernabeu, which has managed to collapse great coaches and players. His maturity will be tested, also in dealing with the media outside of games. His judgment has already been showcased in the decision to sign with Real. PSG and Liverpool were also strongly in the picture, but PSG suddenly discovered financial responsibility and was not willing to pay 140 million euros to Leipzig (although it was initially the preferred destination for Diomande, who dreamed of France). Liverpool remained in the race, but according to the report in the Mirror, after a conversation with the new manager Andoni Iraola, the young Ivorian felt that Liverpool was not going to take the world by storm but was aiming for a transition season — and he preferred to be involved immediately in a team that aims as high as possible. Diomande's agent, Nathan Campbell, added: "The conversation with Mourinho was the last piece of the puzzle. He spoke fluent French, which impressed Yan very much. He explained his ideas, the project, Yan's fit for the team. That was the key."

In The Athletic, they spoke extensively about Mourinho and Real's plans. The club has changed focus significantly in recent years, and from attempts to build another Galacticos team, it has moved to investing in younger players, which has been very successful in the cases of Vinicius and Bellingham. This also appealed to Diomande, who saw the path other kids took at Real, the ability of the support system to take such players a step further. Only in November will he celebrate 20, and what he has been through in his life so far is simply crazy. But that is also what built Yan Diomande. He is special. He is very ready. He is not a wonderkid, he is just a wonder.

"This is no longer a game for me, but a stage. This is my chance to show the whole world what you saw in me. With every goal, I will make sure everyone knows your name, so they don't forget you. You always said I could be bigger than Cristiano. If I see him, I will give him your regards. I swear I will do what you predicted. I will prove you were right, or I will die trying. Your brother, Yan." (The letter quoted in the article was published by Diomande this year in The Players' Tribune. He wrote the words to his little sister Roxane. She died shortly after his debut at Leganes, after a substance was slipped into her drink at a party. She was 15 years old).