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None of our men swallowed so many miles on the lawn and stole as many balls from the opponent. Our portrait of N'Golo Kanté.
A succession of clean and undisturbed buildings, greenery. The city where N'Golo Kanté grew up is a calm district of Rueil-Malmaison. Teenagers indicate the footballer's building. We press them with questions: "N'Golo has not changed. A few days before the World Cup, we saw him go shopping at Carrefour Market. His family still lives there. A local thirty tells a mute kid, his feet stuck to a balloon. He remembers smiling the slogans "N'Golo Barça! N'Golo Barça! Shouted by friends from the stands of JS Suresnes, where Kante shone kid. FC Barcelona, a kid's dream, so far …
When he was born in Paris in 1991, his parents, who came from Mali years ago, gave him the name of a legendary king in the 18th century, a poor child who has reached the highest levels, as a prescience of his destiny. N'Golo grows up among four brothers, four sisters and a mother, a housekeeper. He arrives at the Stade Maurice-Hubert de Suresnes at 10 years old. This little guy strikes the spirits. He is two heads shorter than the others, but never stops, ever, to run. He is the firefighter of service, he clogs the breaches. N'Golo becomes the mascot, the one his teammates protect, that his coaches incubate, so much that he hits the ball with the big ones. Nice, attentive, always on time, never grumpy, with its boiled baby, how not to love? He says nothing about his intimate torment, does not rely on the death of his father while entering college.
At JS Suresnes, his first club (bottom left) © DR
Its educators present their nugget while he is between 15 and 16 years old at various training centers: Clairefontaine, Rennes, Sochaux … Refusal, because it is considered too small, too thin. "N'Golo is invisible, he needs a time of adaptation. The bad news was announced to him; he replied, without anger, that he was not ready, "says Tomasz Bzymek, his youth coach, who is insistent:" N'Golo is our pride. Kanté does not despair. He works, dribbles, gets better during the holidays, awaits the proposal. The amateur club of Boulogne-sur-Mer recruits him. Not Barca, but it's better than the mine. N'Golo passes a BTS accountancy, just in case. He's making progress. His method? "He observes his partners, obeys the coach and gets up to standard, with an irreproachable lifestyle," says a former Suresnes. His teammates see the dumb boy moving around town on a scooter with his backpack. They take him to the stadium by car. The end of the month is difficult, the beginnings too, but N'Golo does not complain. He occupies a position without glory, middle recuperator. Man-sandwich between attack and defense, "Sisyphus" Kanté steals the ball from the opponent, passes it and replaces himself, tirelessly. A round-robin worker like Deschamps and not a creator like Zidane, but an essential cog
His big brother Niama died recently of a cardiac arrest
Caen points it out, Kanté becomes professional at 22 years old. He buys a used Megane, does not give up his backpack and always runs. Is it religion that has forged its character? Kante fasting during Ramadan while he must provide intense efforts, sometimes under the hood. "He showed up at meals and it was terrible. I was next to him, and he said to me: "Please do not say anything," confided his teammate Jérôme Rothen to SFR Sport. The coach spared Kante who held the shock. Caen goes up in league 1, N'Golo stays, then ends up exiled. Barça? Leicester, an unknown club, with no record. The siding is improvised royal road. In 2016, the surprising team wins the English championship. Lively, fast, enduring, N'Golo dazzles. "One day, he will center and score on his own center," laughs his coach Claudio Ranieri. Chelsea takes it. The drunkenness of the heights is promised to him … N'Golo, the best player in the Premier League, rides in Mini and ignores Ferrari. Adulated fans roosters, it becomes the source of "Kanté facts", jokes that, on social networks, praise its velocity. Here is one: "N'Golo Kanté does not pay for his electricity, he produces it. The same qualifiers come back in a loop: humble, courageous, modest … The man seems a living advertisement of good values. That said, he's cheating on cards. Doubts, suffering – his older brother Niama has recently died of cardiac arrest – N'Golo the loner does not share them. Maybe football is fixing his wounds. The pragmatist Didier Deschamps knows, he who had not aligned in the final of Euro 2016: with "NG" – his nickname in blue – the teams win; without it, they sink. When we think that the rooster N'Golo almost flew with the Eagles of Mali … What luck for France!
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