alekaras
The ITK of IDK
As opposed to watching every 6th game that he plays in?
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Tanguy Ndombele
- Thread starter JerusalemMan
- Start date
Gazza Dazzla
Chris Perry
Rested
SteveAWOL
Barry Daines
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
https://theathletic.co.uk/1106591/2...ttenhams-record-signing-in-under-three-years/
How Ndombele went from the man nobody wanted to Tottenham’s record signing in under three years
Tanguy Ndombele could have gone either way.
Back in the summer of 2016 it was not clear whether Ndombele would make it as a professional player at all. The previous season his team Amiens had finished third in France’s third tier but manager Christophe Pelissier did not trust the 19-year-old to play a single minute. He had been down playing amateur football with their reserves instead.
Ndombele was overweight. At one point by as much as 18lb. Enough to stop him from getting a move to another club, with Angers, Caen and Auxerre all turning down the chance to sign him while he was still struggling to break through at Amiens. He did not look like a player who would make the most of his obvious gifts, and it was not even clear whether he would ever get the chance.
John Williams is director of football at Amiens. He sat Ndombele down for an hour in May 2016 at their training ground to tell him what a pivotal moment this was for a talented player who was still “not really fit, overweight”, as Williams told The Athletic.
“Listen, if you want to have a career, you need to be fit,” Williams told Ndombele. “You have to be fit. You have to be fully functional. In what you are eating, what you are doing day by day.”
It worked. Ndombele went home to Paris and worked harder than he ever had done on his weight and fitness. He set himself a target of losing 3lb every week and strictly weighed himself every Sunday. His childhood friend Nordine Baaroun, his team-mate from his youth club Linas-Montlhery, found him a personal trainer and a nutritionist. He trained with his old team as well.
“Together we came up with a plan to get him fit,” Baaroun told The Athletic. “After that, he went off and took responsibility. He got to grips with nutrition. He lost weight, and was able to play in Ligue 2.”
When Ndombele returned to Amiens, he was transformed. He is a man who would easily put on weight if he stopped training and playing, but he has worked hard and maintained the same weight ever since.
“Five weeks later when he came back for pre-season he was totally fit,” Williams said. “In his mind, something changed. He was suddenly totally focused on his career. At this moment, I knew he was going to be a good player.”
Up until then, that had not been so clear. There had never been any doubts about his talent, his touch or his love for the game. Ndombele had been a star of his youth teams in the Paris suburbs, FC Epinay-Athletico and then Linas-Montlhery. But when he joined the famous academy at Guingamp in Brittany, it did not work. He was a long way from home, in the remote rainy north-western tip of France. And while that boring isolation helped the likes of Anthony Knockaert, Laurent Koscielny, Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba, it did not work out for the teenage Ndombele. Academy staff loved his talent and character, but questioned his time-keeping and discipline.
He went on trial at Amiens in 2014 and signed, but then decided to try his luck elsewhere, looking for an academy attached to a professional club. He had trials at Le Havre and Reims but did not agree a permanent deal. Instead, Amiens found out about these trials and released Ndombele. He spent six months away from the club before Williams and the new academy director Patrick Abraham brought him back.
He could easily have not returned to Amiens. There are some players whose ascent to the top always looked inevitable. But Ndombele is not one of them. Speak to those who know him best and there is a hint of surprise that he is now Tottenham Hotspur’s record signing, one of the most talented young midfielders in the world.
“During the first training session, I knew the boy had something special,” Williams said. “But nobody can say honestly [they knew] he would be in the French national team, not at that time. It’s difficult to say because Amiens was in the third division, difficult to believe the boy here would be joining Tottenham two years later.”
Baaroun added: “Personally, I thought he would go on to become a good player, but not a ‘top’ player. Then he went to Amiens and came back [to Paris], which made me doubt it. I didn’t think he was ever going to make it. But finally the little guy got to grips with things, and he exploded.”
Ndombele did not even make his first senior start until 27 September 2016 – less than three years ago – in a 1-1 draw at Gazelec Ajaccio, the third biggest team in Corsica. He did not become a regular in the Ligue 2 side until early in 2017, and only then did Amiens start to climb up the table.
“Week after week he was doing better and better,” Williams said. “We had an important game against Sochaux, on May 5. It was very crucial if we wanted to get promoted. We had to win it, and we were losing 1-0.”
Then Ndombele took over, darting to the near post to turn in a free-kick for the equaliser, then finding the top corner from just inside the box to win the game. Amiens won 2-1 and went on to earn promotion to Ligue 1. As Williams said: “That was the most important game he played for us.”
With Amiens back in the top flight there was interest in Ndombele but he wanted to stay at the club and prove himself. Yet he began the campaign so well that Lyon came in to sign him: a one-season loan deal with a £9.1 million permanent option. Amiens eventually made another £11.9 million in bonuses from the deal, £21 million in total for a player who made 24 starts for the club.
It was a rise far quicker than anyone expected. But by the time he reached Lyon, he played with the commitment of a man who might not have expected to get this chance and was desperate to take it. By his second full season there he was establishing himself as the most exciting young midfielder in Europe, dominating Emirates Marketing Project in the Champions League group stage. A player so good that Tottenham have committed £56.5 million on him with another £9.1 million potentially to come.
Ndombele has already settled in well at Spurs under the wing of Moussa Sissoko, who has acted as his translator on the pre-season tour. But the likelihood is that Ndombele will replace his friend in the team, whether alongside Harry Winks in a 4-2-3-1 or driving forward in a diamond.
He has proven already that he will add another level of delicacy to Spurs’ midfield. Just take his first contribution in a Tottenham shirt, in their friendly against Juventus in Singapore last month. Leaping to grab a Mattia De Sciglio cross-field ball out of the air, he drove forward and then cut the Juventus defence open with a pass through for Lucas Moura to score. Agility, vision, incision, all in his first few seconds for Spurs.
Ndombele, after all, is not the type of player you might think he is, and he never has been. You might look at his bulky frame and think that he is a holder, a destroyer, a battering ram. But he is nothing of the sort. He is one of Spurs’ most talented players, one of the most exciting, dangerous, complete midfielders in the European game. He is a box-to-box man of the future, Tottenham’s answer to Naby Keita, Paul Pogba or Kevin De Bruyne. Destruction is only a small part of what he can do.
The real story of Ndombele is one of unusual technical skill and learned mastery of the ball. Born with outstanding natural talent, obsessed with football as a boy, he honed his skills on the dusty hard pitches of the Parisian suburbs. He is from Epinay-sous-Senart, a banlieue south of the city. “He was a good boy who lived for football,” his childhood friend Novic Bayokila told The Athletic. “It was football or nothing.”
His first club was FC Epinay-Athletico and even then his dribbling skill stood out, playing as a No 10 or up front. Bayokila still vividly remembers one game 10 years ago which a 12-year-old Ndombele won by himself. It was the quarter-final of a cup competition at home against local rivals Epinay-sur-Orge. “It was a very tight game,” Bayokila said. “We had the ball without being dangerous. We were tense and lacked inspiration.”
How Ndombele went from the man nobody wanted to Tottenham’s record signing in under three years
Tanguy Ndombele could have gone either way.
Back in the summer of 2016 it was not clear whether Ndombele would make it as a professional player at all. The previous season his team Amiens had finished third in France’s third tier but manager Christophe Pelissier did not trust the 19-year-old to play a single minute. He had been down playing amateur football with their reserves instead.
Ndombele was overweight. At one point by as much as 18lb. Enough to stop him from getting a move to another club, with Angers, Caen and Auxerre all turning down the chance to sign him while he was still struggling to break through at Amiens. He did not look like a player who would make the most of his obvious gifts, and it was not even clear whether he would ever get the chance.
John Williams is director of football at Amiens. He sat Ndombele down for an hour in May 2016 at their training ground to tell him what a pivotal moment this was for a talented player who was still “not really fit, overweight”, as Williams told The Athletic.
“Listen, if you want to have a career, you need to be fit,” Williams told Ndombele. “You have to be fit. You have to be fully functional. In what you are eating, what you are doing day by day.”
It worked. Ndombele went home to Paris and worked harder than he ever had done on his weight and fitness. He set himself a target of losing 3lb every week and strictly weighed himself every Sunday. His childhood friend Nordine Baaroun, his team-mate from his youth club Linas-Montlhery, found him a personal trainer and a nutritionist. He trained with his old team as well.
“Together we came up with a plan to get him fit,” Baaroun told The Athletic. “After that, he went off and took responsibility. He got to grips with nutrition. He lost weight, and was able to play in Ligue 2.”
When Ndombele returned to Amiens, he was transformed. He is a man who would easily put on weight if he stopped training and playing, but he has worked hard and maintained the same weight ever since.
“Five weeks later when he came back for pre-season he was totally fit,” Williams said. “In his mind, something changed. He was suddenly totally focused on his career. At this moment, I knew he was going to be a good player.”
Up until then, that had not been so clear. There had never been any doubts about his talent, his touch or his love for the game. Ndombele had been a star of his youth teams in the Paris suburbs, FC Epinay-Athletico and then Linas-Montlhery. But when he joined the famous academy at Guingamp in Brittany, it did not work. He was a long way from home, in the remote rainy north-western tip of France. And while that boring isolation helped the likes of Anthony Knockaert, Laurent Koscielny, Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba, it did not work out for the teenage Ndombele. Academy staff loved his talent and character, but questioned his time-keeping and discipline.
He went on trial at Amiens in 2014 and signed, but then decided to try his luck elsewhere, looking for an academy attached to a professional club. He had trials at Le Havre and Reims but did not agree a permanent deal. Instead, Amiens found out about these trials and released Ndombele. He spent six months away from the club before Williams and the new academy director Patrick Abraham brought him back.
He could easily have not returned to Amiens. There are some players whose ascent to the top always looked inevitable. But Ndombele is not one of them. Speak to those who know him best and there is a hint of surprise that he is now Tottenham Hotspur’s record signing, one of the most talented young midfielders in the world.
“During the first training session, I knew the boy had something special,” Williams said. “But nobody can say honestly [they knew] he would be in the French national team, not at that time. It’s difficult to say because Amiens was in the third division, difficult to believe the boy here would be joining Tottenham two years later.”
Baaroun added: “Personally, I thought he would go on to become a good player, but not a ‘top’ player. Then he went to Amiens and came back [to Paris], which made me doubt it. I didn’t think he was ever going to make it. But finally the little guy got to grips with things, and he exploded.”
Ndombele did not even make his first senior start until 27 September 2016 – less than three years ago – in a 1-1 draw at Gazelec Ajaccio, the third biggest team in Corsica. He did not become a regular in the Ligue 2 side until early in 2017, and only then did Amiens start to climb up the table.
“Week after week he was doing better and better,” Williams said. “We had an important game against Sochaux, on May 5. It was very crucial if we wanted to get promoted. We had to win it, and we were losing 1-0.”
Then Ndombele took over, darting to the near post to turn in a free-kick for the equaliser, then finding the top corner from just inside the box to win the game. Amiens won 2-1 and went on to earn promotion to Ligue 1. As Williams said: “That was the most important game he played for us.”
With Amiens back in the top flight there was interest in Ndombele but he wanted to stay at the club and prove himself. Yet he began the campaign so well that Lyon came in to sign him: a one-season loan deal with a £9.1 million permanent option. Amiens eventually made another £11.9 million in bonuses from the deal, £21 million in total for a player who made 24 starts for the club.
It was a rise far quicker than anyone expected. But by the time he reached Lyon, he played with the commitment of a man who might not have expected to get this chance and was desperate to take it. By his second full season there he was establishing himself as the most exciting young midfielder in Europe, dominating Emirates Marketing Project in the Champions League group stage. A player so good that Tottenham have committed £56.5 million on him with another £9.1 million potentially to come.
Ndombele has already settled in well at Spurs under the wing of Moussa Sissoko, who has acted as his translator on the pre-season tour. But the likelihood is that Ndombele will replace his friend in the team, whether alongside Harry Winks in a 4-2-3-1 or driving forward in a diamond.
He has proven already that he will add another level of delicacy to Spurs’ midfield. Just take his first contribution in a Tottenham shirt, in their friendly against Juventus in Singapore last month. Leaping to grab a Mattia De Sciglio cross-field ball out of the air, he drove forward and then cut the Juventus defence open with a pass through for Lucas Moura to score. Agility, vision, incision, all in his first few seconds for Spurs.
Ndombele, after all, is not the type of player you might think he is, and he never has been. You might look at his bulky frame and think that he is a holder, a destroyer, a battering ram. But he is nothing of the sort. He is one of Spurs’ most talented players, one of the most exciting, dangerous, complete midfielders in the European game. He is a box-to-box man of the future, Tottenham’s answer to Naby Keita, Paul Pogba or Kevin De Bruyne. Destruction is only a small part of what he can do.
The real story of Ndombele is one of unusual technical skill and learned mastery of the ball. Born with outstanding natural talent, obsessed with football as a boy, he honed his skills on the dusty hard pitches of the Parisian suburbs. He is from Epinay-sous-Senart, a banlieue south of the city. “He was a good boy who lived for football,” his childhood friend Novic Bayokila told The Athletic. “It was football or nothing.”
His first club was FC Epinay-Athletico and even then his dribbling skill stood out, playing as a No 10 or up front. Bayokila still vividly remembers one game 10 years ago which a 12-year-old Ndombele won by himself. It was the quarter-final of a cup competition at home against local rivals Epinay-sur-Orge. “It was a very tight game,” Bayokila said. “We had the ball without being dangerous. We were tense and lacked inspiration.”
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
Ndombele’s father Alvaro arrived at half-time with some advice: “Tanguy, it is up to you to find the solution for your team-mates, and to unlock the match.”
“After that, he was on another level,” Bayokila said. “His characteristic body-feint, his step overs, his roulette turns. He destabilised the opposition defence almost single-handedly, and provoked a red card, which allowed us to win the match and qualify for the next round.”
That body feint is Ndombele’s signature move. His team-mates in the academy at Guingamp called him “El Feinto”. For a powerful man he is remarkably agile and opponents do not expect him to skip and swerve through them. When he surges forward, he is difficult to stop.
It was the same at ESA Linas-Montlhery, Ndombele’s second club. His older brother Bosso had captained them and, after speaking to Nordine Baaroun, he brought young Tanguy along with him too. Baroun still remembers how good that 14-year-old was, even playing with boys one or two years older than him, and especially in one 2011 game against professional side Paris FC.
The game was played on what the French call “un terrain rouge”: dusty, sandy, hard red ground, miles away from 3G, never mind grass. “It was a joke of a pitch,” Baaroun said, “a catastrophic surface”. Ndombele had missed Wednesday training that week, and so he started the game on the bench. Linas-Montlhery were 1-0 down at half-time, and Ndombele came on.
“He started like a crescendo,” Baaroun said. “He dribbled past the entire opposition to score. Ten minutes later he did the same thing again, dribbling past all of them. This time, he shot with his left foot, but the ball hit the bar and rebounded back, falling back at his feet again. He dribbled past one defender, then a second, and then the goalkeeper, to finally score, this time gently rolling the ball over the line. Ten minutes later, he dribbled past the whole team yet again. He had technical ability that few kids had. And I still see that today.”
When Baaroun watches his great friend now he sees the same skill from the boy with whom he grew up. The same smooth glide away from opponents, whatever the standard of the pitch. “He is a very explosive player over three or four metres, that is his strength,” Baaroun said. “He was the same player as a youngster: the same percussiveness, the same vision, the same quality and intent in the pass. He has a gift, GHod gave it to him.”
If there is one difference it is that he has picked up some defensive discipline. “He had one fault as a young player, his efforts in defence. He saw himself as an attacking player, so he didn’t make the effort to defend. He corrected that, and he is a lot better now. He defends a lot more. He has progressed,” Baaroun told The Athletic.
For a sense of just how unusual it is to have a midfielder this complete, just look at the statistics. Ndombele completed 63 of his 92 dribbles in Ligue 1 last season, a 68% success rate and the highest for anyone in the top five European leagues who attempted so many. Draw up a list of players who completed at least 50 tackles, 50 dribbles and with a pass completion rate above 85% and it is a small group of attacking players. Ndombele’s numbers most closely resemble those of Thiago Alcantara, one of the most watchable all-round midfielders in the game.
That is what it all comes down to: the velvet touch and the vertical burst. “The best [quality] for him is his first touch, it is fantastic,” Williams said. “Just with the first touch he can break through the lines. He can make the difference with his first touch. He is very powerful and when is one v one, he never loses the ball. His style of play is very vertical, which is appreciated now in football. Playing forward in that way is more difficult to defend against. He can reach the strikers very easily. And not many central midfielders can do that.”
elyid
Milija Aleksic
I personally think N'Dombele is the best player anyone in the Prem has signed this window... but I seem to be the only one :s
He's a beast and pretty much never gives the ball away, exactly the attributes that work well in this league.
Him and Lo Celso will be ball magnets (no homo)
He's a beast and pretty much never gives the ball away, exactly the attributes that work well in this league.
Him and Lo Celso will be ball magnets (no homo)
Glenda's Legs
Paul Walsh
It almost feels like Ndombele has been forgotten about with all today's shenanigans.
I had assumed everyone felt that way. Not only is he the best signing in the PL this summer, he's also the biggest upgrade - so he's best placed to make a difference to our fortunes.
Denmark Spur
Michael Carrick
elyid
Milija Aleksic
Ah, I think my problem was looking on Twitter (I don't usually, but deadline day and all that).
Quite a few Spurs fans on there seemed dissatisfied with him. Someone even asking is he better than Ceballos.
Being underestimated could help in the opening games though.
My understanding (possible biased by the fact that I really wanted us to sign him) is that he's one of the most in demand young players in the world. It's certainly a statement signing a player like him.
Daisuk
Nayim
N'Dombele is a fantastic signing. I didn't think for a second we could have even a tiny chance to sign him. I saw him ending up at either Barca, Real or City, but we somehow pulled it out of the hat. It's great if people don't expect too much of him though, he'll tear them a new one anyway, I reckon!
Glenda's Legs
Paul Walsh
Underestimated by some fans maybe, but I'm sure opposition players will be more than aware of what he does.
Bullet
Colin Calderwood
NickTB
Eidur Gudjohnsen
I won't link to it, as it's Talkbrick AND Declan Rice, but this is copied from the BBC
West Ham and England midfielder Declan Rice, 20, says the player he is looking forward to facing this year is Tottenham's new French signing Tanguy Ndombele, 22. (Talksport) Say's he's really highly rated and the French in the Spammers team are raving about him
afsoc4life
Dean Richards
May Tanguy have a much better season than Pogba.