Traore’s journey to Ajax reminds Mourinho what might have been
The young forward who scored a wonder goal on Chelsea’s summer tour in 2013 has the chance to deny his former manager victory in the Europa League final
It was Jose Mourinho’s second match in charge of Chelsea the second time around, a punishingly hot evening in Jakarta on the 2013 summer tour, with the big guns who had played in the Confederations Cup yet to join up, and it felt a long way from the challenges that lay ahead.
Among the Chelsea party for those games in Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Ryan Bertrand, all later disposed of by Mourinho (below) as he built the team who would win the title a year later, and then betray him – his words – another 12 months on.
But this was pre-season, when there was only encouragement, even for a teenager from Burkina Faso, who had been an unexpected inclusion in the squad. Bertrand Traoré was just 17 that summer and Chelsea had been obliged to fly him out separately from the rest of the squad as he was not yet a professional at the club. He was in the United Kingdom on a student visa, his status at Chelsea was officially that of a trialist and, while Mourinho wanted to select him for the touring party, it might have been easier for the club if he had been out of sight.
That night in Ja Jakarta he struck a goal from the edg edge of the box that suggested that, de despite his young years, he was by no means out of place in such company.com It would usually be the caseca that a teenager who had just scoredsc for the first team in front of a full stadium might wish to share his thoughts on his experience, but that nightn Traoré was on to the busbu without breaking stride.
He wouldw play only three more times for Mourinho, more than 2½ years later, in theth dog days of last season,seas finally as a late substitutesubs in that home defeatdefe by Bournemouth in December, two games before the manager was sacked. Now, almost four years since that summer tour, in one of the delicious twists that football serves up, it is Traoré’s loan team who stand between Mourinho and Manchester United winning the Europa League.
The boy from one of the poorest nations in the world has served a long apprenticeship, from two seasons on loan at Vitesse Arnhem, back to Chelsea last season, where he made a further 13 appearances and scored four goals under caretaker Guus Hiddink, and now at Ajax. He scored twice in the Europa League first-leg semi-final demolition of Lyon, and he will surely figure against Manchester United in Stockholm on May 24.
His is an extraordinary football story, capped by Burkina Faso’s senior team at just 15, he already has 38 caps at the age of 21. He first came to prominence as a 14-year-old, playing at
Traore has packed as much into six years as many manage in a career
under-17 level in the 2009 World Cup for that age group, prompting the usual stampede from European clubs to secure the future of a player who, by Fifa laws, would not be permitted to make a cross-border transfer before the age of 18.
How he came to London, and to be educated at the Whitgift specialist sports school in Croydon, is a story in which there are more questions than answers. Fifa launched an investigation into Chelsea when it emerged in January last year that Traoré had played in an under-18 game against Arsenal in October 2011, which only came to light when the Press Association spotted a report of the game on Arsenal’s official website.
Chelsea said at the time that he had dispensation to play in the game, aged 16, and they later registered him in compliance with Football Association and Premier League guidelines in 2014. Before Jan 1, 2014, when he was able to sign professional terms with the club, he was effectively a free agent and there was genuine anxiety at the prospect of him being lured elsewhere. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Chelsea’s part.
In January 2014, he went on loan to Vitesse, to play the games that would allow him to get his European Union work permit under coach Peter Bosz, now his manager at Ajax. This season he has 35 appearances and 13 goals for Ajax, as well as playing a full part in Burkina Faso’s run to the semi-final of the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon in January, where they eventually finished third. He had made his Cup of Nations debut in 2015, aged 19. This year he was named in the team of the tournament.
As for the Fifa investigation into Traoré’s past, including the game against Arsenal in 2011, the governing body did not respond to questions this week as to whether it was still current. Transfer embargoes have been imposed on clubs such as Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, who have breached rules on the crossborder transfer of child footballers.
Traoré has packed as much into his six years in senior football as many manage in a career – four clubs, including an unspecified period at Auxerre, two major international tournaments, and now a Europa League final. Burkina Faso, a country of 17 million, punches above its weight in terms of African football, but even so, at just 21, Traoré’s career stands out among his compatriots.
As the 14-year-old African prodigy, his story stands as an archetype for modern football: if you are good enough, they will find you. Then it is a case of dealing with pressure to perform, new countries, new loan clubs each season and a whole different way of life while maintaining the standards that got you there in the first place. No small consideration for a young man, a long way from home.
So far he has shown that he is prepared to take his chance, and there is none like the one that awaits in Stockholm later this month.