Balde willing to graft to regain Portugal place
Three countries, two continents, one dream: to play for his national team
UMARO BALDE is staring intently into the camera. Dressed in a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, it’s fairly safe to assume he’s attempting to disguise just how cold he is.
An icy wind is whipping its way around an almostdeserted South Lanarkshire playing field where a couple of hundred yards behind us stands the statue of Rangers legend Davie Cooper. A few passers-by stop to take in the scene, guessing as to who Balde might be, before shrugging their shoulders and moving on. In a few years’ time those same rubber-neckers might recall the day they saw one Rangers favourite having his picture taken in front of a statue celebrating the life of another.
Certainly, Balde’s plan is to make a name for himself at Ibrox. Two goals against Aberdeen Under-18s on Friday night confirm that he is well on the way to doing so.
If he later admits the weather is the worst thing about Scotland, it should not be taken as evidence of a lack of fortitude on the 17-year-old’s part.
Born in Guinea-Bissau, he grew up in poverty. He takes out his phone and shows me pictures of Quelele, the township where he lived in the west African country.
Balde laughs at the images of the dusty, clay-coloured streets, ramshackle mud huts and rush leaf roofs, comparing where he lives now – a far m cottage in the Milngavie countryside – with what he left behind.
“There is one street, the house isn’t very good. The house doesn’t look right. It was tough, because people didn’t have money. That was the reason we went to Portugal.”
There were other reasons, too. Against the backdrop of intermittent civil unrest, his mother and father could recall days when Guinea-Bissau was not just a poor place to live but unsafe, too.
“My mum and my dad told me about the trouble,” he says. “My father saw it. One day, some people came to his village and my dad said he had to run to another place. He kept going for hour after hour, he didn’t have a car, he didn’t have nothing, so he had to walk and run for two or three hours to get away. They had to leave everything and just go because there was fighting between rival forces. He had many friends who were killed in the crossfire.
“We left Guinea-Bissau for a better life. My dad thought we would have a future in Portugal. My dad wanted me [and my brother] to come to Portugal to study, to go to school, because it [the schooling] is better. And it was better in Portugal but I think I am better [off] here now. It was hard in Portugal, too. It is a dream to be here.”
At 12, Balde signed for local Lisbon team Damaiense.
It was a tough area of the city. One guide for Erasmus students recommends steering clear of five areas in Lisbon of which Damaia is one. The relevant sentence reads: “To stay safe in Lisbon: avoid them if possible, be careful if not.”
Based an hour from Balde’s home, he recalls trips to the benighted neighbourhood as exercises in keeping his head down.
“There were many problems there, it was not a place for a young boy. From the age of 12 I went every day for training here, I went alone. The training started at night-time [at 7pm]. It was an hour on the train and then I had to walk for 15 minutes to training. It was a dangerous place. There was a lot of gun crime and many drugs there.”
Asked if he was afraid, he shakes his head; he knew the terrain in front of him was hostile, nonetheless, and learned a vital lesson.
“Sometimes I saw some things but I went on my way. I said ‘hello,’ I carried on my way. I went about my life, I didn’t speak.”
He has found his voice since. Balde joined Rangers last summer from Sporting Club who liked what they saw of the defensive midfielder’s performances for Damaiense so much that their former president, the madcap Bruno de Carvalho, once put a €25m price tag on him when Balde was just 14. If there was a degree of levity on Bruno’s valuation, Rangers nevertheless did well to get him amid interest from Aston Villa, Newcastle United and Middlesbrough in England and in his homeland in the shape of Porto.
Last week, he was called up to the Portugal Under-18 side for a forthcoming training camp. It is a measure of his progress since signing for the club. When he left Sporting, he had lost his place in the age-grade squad having represented his adopted homeland at Under-14s, 15s and 16s. Someone, somewhere in the national team set-up, has been impressed by his performances for Rangers.
“I know they send people to watch games in England and Germany. Maybe someone came to watch a game in Scotland, I don’t know who. I think the move to Rangers has helped. I’ve worked very hard to get back into the national team. I’ve played for the national team for a long time; the national team is too important to not play [and] this [move] has helped very much.
“The main difference is that everyone works very hard in Scotland. In Portugal, they don’t work as hard, they don’t do gym. I like playing more in Scotland, every tackle, it’s hard, you’ve got to work hard. I like to pass, to defend. I think I am a better player now, especially when the team don’t have the ball.”
The hard work referred to extends to regular additional sessions on the training ground, on occasions he’ll work with Kane Ritchie-Hosler, his housemate and team-mate in the Under-18s, or Rangers coach David McCallum.
I like playing in Scotland more. You have got to