Accomplished at 16: The Starting of Yoro
“After I met him once I was 16, he was a really full participant.”
Jocelyn Gourvennec is the pinnacle coach of Lille and makes her skilled debut for Yoro within the 2021/22 season.
Lille have an extended historical past of manufacturing excellent younger expertise – Eden Hazard, Benjamin Pavard, Lucas Digne and Franck Ribery are only a few of the gamers Mastiff Academy construction – however none of them are as younger as Yoyo.
Lille’s state of affairs was comparatively determined. The reigning French Ligue 1 champions had solely 18 gamers competing within the league and Champions League on the time, so Yoro shortly entered first-team coaching.
“For the primary three or 4 months I used gamers older than Lenny, after which the president advised me to contemplate a youthful participant, who was solely 16 years previous,” Gurvenek mentioned. sky sports activities.
“We simply took him to coaching at first, which was shocking – as a result of he was so neat and calm.”
Yoro has not solely impressed Lille’s teaching workers, but in addition his new first-team colleagues. Gourvennec requested Jose Fonte, Renato Sanches and Burak Yilmaz for his or her opinions on their new academy merchandise.
“It was essential to ask skilled gamers what they thought and all of them had been completely satisfied by him,” Gurvenek added.
“They mentioned: ‘He is solely 16 and it is tough to play each sport now. However you realize in a yr or two he can be an essential participant.
Yoro needed to anticipate his likelihood – extra skilled frontmen reminiscent of Font, Sven Botman and Thiago Jallow had been forward of him within the defensive pecking order.
However when he made his skilled debut in a 3-1 win over Good in Might 2022, Yoro turned Lille’s second youngest participant and the youngest to make his debut after Eden Hazard.
His promising profession started.
