Section:GDN 1N PaGe:38 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 19:25 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 31 July 2019
(^38) Sport
Football
Pépé has to learn
football is not just
fun ... it’s his job
Ed Aarons
Be more consistent and more
serious is the plan now for the
fl ying winger set to become
Arsenal’s club-record signing
‘ I
never even thought about
that,” admitted Nicolas
Pépé in November. “Now,
in modern football, it’s
going fast. I did not see
myself being transferred
for 10 million. I did not even see
myself becoming a professional ...”
Pépé was born in quaint-sounding
Mantes-la-Jolie – 18 miles to the
west of the capital – but raised on
the mean streets of Paris’s 19th
arrondissement that was also the
birthplace of Kylian Mbappé. But
unlike the only player to fi nish ahead
of him in last season’s Ligue 1 scoring
charts Pépé was never expected to
become a superstar. Even his father
had his doubts when the player who
is set to become Arsenal’s record
signing and the most expensive
African in history announced at
the age of six it was his intention to
follow his dream.
“He was so sure of himself
but I could not say anything,”
remembered Céléstin Pépé in an
interview with Onze Mondial last
year. “The teacher was surprised but
hey. He had his idea in mind. I just
wanted him to reach his goal.”
A keen player in his younger days
in the Ivory Coast, Pépé Sr became a
youth coach and played for Poitiers’
veterans’ side when his employment
as a prison guard meant the family
had to move more than 200 miles
away from Paris to the cathedral city
when his son was 14. Yet rather than
the incisive pace and deadly left footthat have become his trademark
since he moved to Lille in 2017,
Pépé’s career had begun between the
sticks at the amateur youth side FC
Paris Solitaires Est before he made
the switch to playing outfi eld.
Even then the willowy teenager
did not really stand out , with Angers
taking a chance on the 18-year-old
only after he was recommended to
their coach, Stéphane Moulin, by the
Poitiers sporting director, Philippe
Leclerc, in 2013. Once there, Pépé
came close to being thrown out after
an incident at a supermarket that
led to him and several teammates
being accused of eating a chocolate
bar without paying for it. Only the
intervention of the youth coach,
Abdel Bouhazama, saved them.
“He and the president gave us
a second chance,” Pépé told Onze.
“They showed they really cared
about us.”
After making his debut for Angers
in Ligue 2 in November 2014, a
spell on loan at third-tier Orléans
ended with promotion and Pépé
being named the best player in the
Championnat National. “At fi rst I did
not like it but I managed to change
that,” he said. “And it allowed me to
increase my mental strength and be
able to impose myself in Ligue 1.”
Within 12 months, he was playing
in the Coupe de France fi nal against
Paris Saint-Germain, having scored
three goals during his debut season
in the top fl ight. The off ers were
already fl ooding in, with Watford
and Hull failing with bids of £7m in
January 2017 before Marcelo Bielsa’s
Lille got their man for around £9m
that summer. Pépé played less than
half a season under him before the
current Leeds manager fell out
with the club’s hierarchy and was
replaced by Christophe Galtier, with
Lille narrowly avoiding relegation
thanks in large part to their fl yingauthority, the DNCG – meant a
transfer was almost inevitable
this summer, even if off ers from
Barcelona and PSG failed to
materialise.
With Napoli also interested,
Arsenal stepped in after they
received encouragement from
Lopez that payment of €80m could
be structured over the next fi ve
seasons, making Pépé – who is
expected to earn around £90,000
a week at the Emirates – a much
more aff ordable proposition than
his international teammate Wilfried
Zaha of Crystal Palace.W
hile neither
lived up to
expectations at
the Africa Cup of
Nations in Egypt
as Ivory Coast
were eliminated on penalties in the
quarter-fi nals against the eventual
winners, Algeria, Pépé off ered a
glimpse of his talent in the opening
seconds of their fi rst match against
South Africa. H is mazy dribble
down the right fl ank set up Jonathan
Kodjia for an opening he spurned,
while two sweetly-struck free-kicks
almost resulted in goals. Arsenal
supporters will hope he can form a
potent front three with Alexandre
Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick
Aubameyang, although it remains to
be seen whether they can dovetail
successfully with Mesut Özil.
“My son has a lot of qualities but
he still has a lot of work,” Pépé’s
father said. “He must be more
consistent in his game, more serious.
He must understand this is not fun,
it’s his job.”
With the Emirates Stadium
craving success after the struggles
of recent seasons, they will hope
Arsenal’s record signing can live up
to his potential.most of their radars given his modest
background, even if the Liverpool
manager, Jürgen Klopp, is said to be
a long- standing admirer.
Lille’s fi nancial diffi culties under
their owner Gérard Lopez – they
were threatened with relegation
in 2018 after a run-in with French
football’s notoriously strict fi nancialwinger’s 13 league goals. Yet it was
last season which proved to be his
coming of age as Galtier’s young
side fi nished second to PSG, with
Pépé playing a starring role in the
5-1 thrashing of Thomas Tuchel’s
champions elect in April. A total of
22 goals alerted most of Europe’s top
clubs to a player who had not been on Nicolas Pépé
started out as a
goalkeeper at the
amateur youth
side FC Paris
Solitaires Est
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