CHEAPO CHOUPO
He’s free, he’s fresh and Mourinho’s men can’t stop him
CONCLUSIONS can be drawn easily with a quick glance at Maxim ChoupoMoting’s numbers. Only three Bundesliga goals last season. Ten is his record. He has never cost a penny in transfer fees.
But things added up on Saturday evening, as he scored a poacher’s double, embarrassing the previously impressive pair of Phil Jones and Eric Bailly.
Mark Hughes took a long time trailing Choupo-Moting, Stoke scouts spending hours watching him flounder at Schalke last season. They came away believing there was something to be polished.
Choupo-Moting’s career has drifted until this point. Schalke’s sporting director, Christian Heidel, claimed ‘there is almost nothing Maxim cannot do’, but he has twice allowed him to leave for nothing — the first time being at Mainz in 2014.
So what kind of player have Stoke signed? ‘He’s big, he’s powerful and technically he’s excellent,’ Hughes said. ‘He can take the ball and create in one-on-one situations.’
Not everything Choupo-Moting tries comes off. What he adds, however, is power to the trickery and a willingness to run off the back of markers. In that sense he serves as a replacement for Marko Arnautovic.
‘I knew I was getting an experienced player, a player who had played in a top league and a player that I felt had the physicality and the strength and power to cope really well,’ Hughes said. ‘You look at him and he is an imposing guy who is 6ft 3in — or probably 6ft 6in with his hair!’
Hughes described Choupo-Moting as ‘very articulate’. He is not your conventional Premier League player. His wife Nevin is his best friend from school in Hamburg and the couple have a three-year-old son, Liam.
He is cool. Fashion and art are two of his passions. Choupo-Moting spends his afternoons after training painting. He mixes his own music, too, calling himself ‘Mr Choupo’ on social media.
Born to a German mother and Cameroonian father, Cameroon were his country of choice when he came to represent a national side.
But he faced the ire of his national coach Roger Milla earlier this year when he was one of many stars to opt out of the Africa Cup of Nations. In the aftermath, Schalke mistakenly announced Choupo-Moting’s retirement from international football... but he is now back in the fold, featuring in their recent matches before announcing himself to the Premier League with this fine double.