You could say Alexander Isak and Henok Goitom have one or two things in common. There may be a 15-year age gap between the pair, but these sons of Eritrea were both born in Solna on the outskirts of Stockholm and went on to play as strikers for AIK before sampling life in Spain at crucial junctures of their respective careers.
Remarkably, the pair's connection does not end there. Isak's father, Teame, even taught Goitom Tigrinya, the language of Eritrea, when the Swede was just 10 years of age. Two decades later, that same teacher was dropping off his son for training with Goitom and co at AIK.
Having seen first-hand how Isak has developed since then, Goitom knows more than most how the 23-year-old has 'not changed as a person' - even after a club-record move to Newcastle.
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"We hung out a few weeks ago for two or three hours," the AIK assistant manager told ChronicleLive. "Alex is just a humble guy. It doesn't matter where he is. He could win the World Cup and the way he acts would be the same. The fame doesn't go to his head. He's very calm and talks respectfully to people."
You can see why Isak passed Eddie Howe's stringent character tests when Newcastle did their homework on the striker before he joined the club from Real Sociedad last summer. Although Isak is naturally inquisitive and keen to learn - even asking Howe about how he wanted Newcastle to play - the summer arrival is naturally a reserved figure who prefers to let his football do the talking.
Rather than disrupting the dressing room, and the team-first mentality already established at the club, Isak has bought into it and welcomed the chance to get to know his team-mates even more closely during this week's warm-weather training break in Saudi Arabia. There were a couple of glimpses of that selflessness on the field before Isak's thigh injury, including a clever through ball to slip in Joe Willock against Crystal Palace back in September.
It is one of the reasons why Howe feels Isak could yet play alongside Callum Wilson because they are different strikers with 'unique strengths'. The pair have not yet even had a chance to train together - let alone play alongside one another - because of their respective injury issues but you would not bet against Howe one day fielding the £83m duo in a 4-3-3.
Isak, after all, has previously lined up alongside Alexander Sorloth at Real Sociedad, Vangelis Pavlidis at Willem II and Carlos Strandberg at AIK, and Goitom has no doubt his former team-mate could thrive up top with Wilson when he potentially returns to action in the coming weeks.
"You have strikers that are best when they play alone and then you have strikers like Alex," he said. "If you want to get the best out of him, it's just to play freely because he knows where the spaces are. He has the quality of getting the ball close to the touchline and making something out of it. We saw the goal ruled out for offside against Liverpool.
"He wasn't at the max level at Real Sociedad because he often played as a lone number nine but when he has this freedom where he can shift, and his team-mate takes his place if he goes away from his original position, you will see his quality as a striker. His best position is to be a free bird.
"You have to ask Alex what he likes but, when I see him, I think he enjoys playing with somebody close to him because he's good at combinations. He has that intelligence."
Isak does not just possess that intelligence on the field. Rather than panicking after only scoring seven La Liga goals last season, Isak calmly analysed what he needed to improve and worked at it when such a modest return might have affected other similarly aged players.
Anyone who watched Isak's debut at Anfield will tell you he did not lack confidence and it was a similar story when the Sweden international first trained with AIK at just 15. Former AIK defender Stefan Ishizaki previously told ChronicleLive how Isak made experienced team-mate Jos Hooiveld 'look foolish' when he ran at him and the striker's aforementioned intelligence 'stood out' to Goitom - even at that age.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," he added. "We were having a possession drill where I wanted the ball, he didn't play it and I got a little bit angry. He passed it to someone else.
"It's very common when you're a young player coming to the first team that you always pass the ball to whoever wants the ball, but he took the right decision. You go far if you make good decisions on the field because later you can talk about improving finishing or improving the ability to go one v one or run from behind or target play. They are more or less the easier things to improve.
"When it comes to the brain, he was always one step ahead of the opponent so that's what I felt that stood out."
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