Thursday afternoon in sleepy Surrey and Tiémoué Bakayoko, sporting that shock of peroxide blond hair, is returning to his roots. The conversation has lingered on an insistence on wearing the No14 shirt both with Monaco and, since August, at Chelsea, with the justification taking him back to the crammed corner of Paris spanning Montparnasse, just inside the southern stretch of the Péripherique ring-road, which made him the man he is today.
“I’m from the 14th arrondissement, a difficult district, but being Parisian is a badge of honour for me,” he says. “I’m proud to be from there. Wearing 14 means all my neighbourhood is still with me. It’s a pressure I carry, but it’s important to show on the pitch where I come from.
“The values that are important to me – work, persistence, and enjoying myself – they all come from having grown up there. It’s not a particularly poor area but it is a district that’s difficult to escape. Paris produces good footballers. There were good footballers in my quartier, too, and I was one of those. But I was certainly not the best. It’s thanks to hard work, and the people I’ve surrounded myself with, from my brothers, family and friends to the coaches who have believed in me, that I have succeeded in getting where I am today.”
At 23, Bakayoko is a France international and Ligue 1 champion, a £39.7m midfielder who has graced a Champions League semi-final and is establishing himself under Antonio Conte at the Premier League title holders. He will seek to maintain recent impressive form across the capital at Crystal Palace on Saturday, denied the injured N’Golo Kanté at his side but eager to stamp authority on the contest. His physique, all imposing frame and explosive power reminiscent of Patrick Vieira or Yaya Touré, would suggest he is made for football in this country. And yet the talk is still of potential. It is easy at times to forget this is a player only two months into his fifth season as a professional, and who has been a real regular for only one of those campaigns.
His journey even to this point has been far from straightforward. There have been setbacks, some self-inflicted courtesy of a mischievous sense of humour and, as he has acknowledged, a reluctance at times to concentrate at school. His reputation as hard work off the pitch at 13 had been partly responsible for a failure to earn a place at the illustrious Institut National du Football de Clairefontaine, the French Football Federation’s elite youth academy which recruits youngsters from across the Île-de-France region. A number of clubs, including his beloved Paris Saint-Germain, were considering pursuing their own interest when he sustained a double leg fracture in a collision with a goalkeeper while playing for his youth club, Montrouge. That put him out of action him for eight months, with his list of suitors dwindling.
“Suffering an injury like that at that age … well, yes, there have been disappointments along the way,” he says. “The same with not getting into Clairefontaine. When you’re young and from Paris, the target is always to get into that academy. But there were other issues which stopped me getting in, and then the injury.” Stade Rennais offered a youth contract regardless of the break and it was in Brittany where Bakayoko, away from his family, found focus. Yannick Menu, then coach of the under‑15s in the club’s respected academy, recognised a raw talent. “Yannick was the first coach I worked with when I arrived at Rennes, and always someone who backed me. He could help me when I was down or punish me when I needed to be punished, someone who told me honestly when I’d done well but also if I had performed poorly, identifying what I needed to work on. He was like a second father for me.”
Bakayoko earned a professional contract and replaced the departed Yann M’Vila in the first team, impressing under Philippe Montanier. Yet, one year into a three-year deal, Monaco paid £6m to lure him south to work under the recently appointed Leonardo Jardim. The 19-year-old was handed a debut on the opening day against Lorient in place of the club captain, Jérémy Toulalan, with the game duly lost and Bakayoko substituted, ignominiously, after 32 minutes. His reaction was furious. It would take months for his relationship with Jardim to heal. “I’m very much a different player now to what I was back then, but I wasn’t happy with being substituted that day. Not at all.
“When you are young and arrive from a small club like Rennes at a club like Monaco and you play your first match, and then the coach drags you off the pitch after 32 minutes … well, that hurts you. You lose confidence. I still don’t agree with what the manager did, and I don’t think he acted in the right way, but he’s the coach so he decides. It wasn’t easy. But those are the challenges which help you in life. They’re the reasons that, today, I’ll prepare for a game in the same way now whether we’re up against an elite team or a small club. I’ve matured a lot. These things are sent to test you, but it’s important to learn, to analyse, to work out how to progress. You find the positives in everything.
“Yannick helped again. When things were difficult at Monaco he came to see me, analysed my game on video, identified what was wrong or missing, what I should be working on and what I needed to do. That third season at Monaco was the best of my career so far, and one I ended as a champion of France.”
A shift in attitude helped, an acknowledgement that, for all the perks of playing on the French Riviera, he was far from the finished article. He gave up the luxury villa and ditched the pink Porsche, rented an apartment and took up boxing classes and a strict diet. Then, in January 2016, Monaco appointed Claude Makelele – a player long idolised by Bakayoko’s brother, Abdoulaye, and now on Swansea City’s coaching staff – as technical director, with the former Chelsea midfielder making the 21-year-old’s development his pet project.
“Claude sought me out immediately and told me he believed in me, counted on me, and what I had to work on so I could offer more on the pitch,” he says. “I knew the glittering career he’d had as one of the best midfielders in the world, so it was important to take on board every word he told me. Over time I felt I did improve as a player, and a lot of that was down to Claude. He still helps me now that I am here in England.
“Everyone has targets, and we all have to set ourselves these objectives and push the boundaries of what we can achieve. Claude Makelele is an example to aspire to. So to have the chance to follow in his footsteps here at Chelsea is a real motivation. Since I started playing football I’ve always dreamed about playing for certain clubs. Chelsea was certainly one of those. When I was little I was inspired by Didier Drogba, and my family always spoke to me about Makelele, so Chelsea’s always been a club that attracted me. Last season I watched them, seeing how best I could play with them. I really thought they were the team in which I could express myself and take my football on.”
The initial impression has been hugely positive. Bakayoko arrived at Cobham over the summer in rehabilitation from minor knee surgery but, with suspensions eating into Conte’s options, made his debut in the impressive win against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley when he had barely trained with his new club-mates. He has anchored midfield in fixtures since, and offered glimpses of his leggy qualities further up the field. “He’s a player who has only started to show the world what he can do,” says Menu. “People will see him progressing over the next few months. Tiémoué has had choices in his life, but he made up his mind to focus on establishing himself as a top-level player, and has worked so hard on and off the pitch. The entourage around him, led by Abdoulaye, makes sure everything is geared towards him giving his best. He’s a young man who deserves to make his mark. He will do just that.”
Menu continues to assist Bakayoko, “pushing me to improve, recording my matches and analysing the performances with me”, but it is Conte who will shape the next stage of his development. Chelsea’s head coach, capped 20 times in Italy’s midfield, will eke new qualities from the Frenchman’s game having tracked him since his Juventus days.
“The chance to work with Conte was one of the biggest reasons for coming to Chelsea,” says Bakayoko. “He’s very demanding, but he works me hard because he believes in me. If I follow his orders, my game will rise to a new level and I can fulfil the potential he sees.
“It’s far harder than what I was used to at Monaco. Training is tough and physically very demanding: over there they were short sessions, less intense and lots of ball work; here we run a lot. I’ve run an awful lot since I arrived. We do a lot of work without the ball, and more on tactics.
“Sometimes I get the feeling I have to make even more effort in training than I do in a match. That’s the level of intensity he demands every day, from all the players, but he’s one of the best coaches in the world. We all know how hard it is to win the Premier League, and yet he won it in his first season in a new country. If you win the league, it’s not a fluke. So that shows his methods work. I’m here to win trophies and, with him as my coach, I know I can achieve that.”
This week, to mark International Day of the Girl, Tiémoué Bakayoko and Chelsea FC are supporting global charity partner Plan International’s efforts to break the barriers facing girls worldwide. Plan-uk.org/breakthebarriers
