Doucouré: Learning from Yaya, a World Cup legacy and a perfect Premier League fit

This interview was originally printed in the Crystal Palace v Bournemouth programme.

The 1978 World Cup was shrouded in controversy, but on the pitch the action was as nail-biting and dramatic as ever.

As Italy kicked off against France at Estadio José María Minella in Mar del Plata near Buenos Aires, all eyes were on a diminutive 23-year-old midfielder lining up for Les Bleus: Michel Platini was about to blossom into the world’s greatest player.

He would run the midfield for years with unfathomable elegance and exquisite skill, winning three Balon d’Or awards; his role as a UEFA administrator would see him shape the game for decades more.

But alongside him that night was a man far less desiring of the limelight, but with an extraordinary legacy of his own.

For as Platini stole the show, Jean-Marc Guillou held the fort in midfield. The World Cup opener was to be the last of his 19 caps for France, but his career at the top of the game had made him think deeply about the future. If playing alongside Platini taught him anything, it was how to spot talent – real talent.

As a manager at Cannes, he appointed a little-known coach to become his assistant manager. The intellectually engaged young man certainly spoke a good game, but his playing career had been unimpressive and there were doubts over his suitability for the position.

Guillou was certain however, and duly named the 34-year-old Arsène Wenger as his right-hand man.

In the 1990s, a new challenge presented itself: how could he nurture the extraordinary amount of untapped talent coming out of Africa, and give youngsters with such huge potential a chance of making it to the top level. The Académie MimoSifcom was the result, formed by Guillou at ASEC Mimosas in Abidjan.

He began scouting missions to sift through the thousands of hopefuls and find the very best young players from across the Ivory Coast. It was a roaring success. The honour roll is lengthy, and includes internationals and Premier League winners like Kolo Touré, Yaya Touré, Emmanuel Eboué, Didier Zokora and Solomon Kalou.

So, how does all of this relate to Crystal Palace? Good question. Allow Cheick Doucouré to answer.

“I spent the first half of my childhood in Abidjan,” he says. “When I was 11 we used to play in our district, and someone would bring us together to play little tournaments. It is that person who create a bond with the Jean-Marc Guillou academy.

“He is the one who took us there to play some tournaments. This is how Jean-Marc Guillou used to do it in Cote d’Ivoire: he structured something which created only good players, such as Hamari Traoré and [Yves] Bissouma from the Premier League also.

"It has been a very good education. I took a lot of pleasure there and this is what helps me be a good player today.”

It seems like fate, then, that Doucouré should fulfil his fantasy of moving to Europe by earning a transfer to a French side – Lens, to be specific. He was following Guillou’s footsteps: a midfielder in Ligue 1. He was just 18-years-old.

“Honestly I was happy to join Europe because it was my dream,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it was complicated because it was my ambition from the beginning to be playing at European clubs.

“Maybe only the cold used to get me tired, in the north of France! But I met great guys and a very welcoming city, and that is what helped me to flourish.”

It wasn’t an easy adjustment. Initially training with the reserves, he struggled to adapt to the pace of the division, and his body was letting him down.

“It wasn’t so easy at the beginning because I started with the second-team,” Doucouré remembers. “I picked up some injuries that kept me tired – physically and mentally – especially due to the cold and the change of weather, but I just kept working.

“Then Eric Roy [former French midfielder and then Sporting Director of RC Lens] – who I salute by the way – helped me a lot with my life at the training ground. He advised me on what to eat, what not to eat etc. It all helped me as well as so many other lads in the team. They helped me to lose myself and play week in, week out.

“I think this is what helped me flourish on the pitch and express myself with my teammates and with the coach. [Improvement] was in the continuity, really.

"It was lots and lots of work, a lot of listening to the players who had experience of playing in Ligue 1 already, and to some players who arrived such as Seko Fofana who helped me a lot maintaining my place in the team and winning games.

“That helped us achieve two great seasons.” His two great seasons earned him a call-up to the national side and a move to the Premier League – a move to Crystal Palace.

It was another step up, but this time he was more mentally prepared for the challenge. “I know I am a good player, so I try not to think too much on the pitch,” he explains.

“I always listen, work and I think I owe my season down to this. As a first stage I would say my season is a positive, but I think I can still do a lot better: to get better statistics, score more goals, give more assists.

"I think I still have big room for improvement. I can keep learning, keep working and it will follow.”

Doucouré’s idol is a Premier League legend whose journey he can relate to; a man who became one of the finest midfielders the country has ever seen.

“Yaya Touré played at the same academy as I did when I was younger, and when I was there I always admired him,” he says. “I thought our games were quite similar, so he was someone I really idolised and based my game on.

“When he was playing for Barcelona, I used to watch his matches because I supported Barcelona back then. Then when he moved to Manchester City I used to watch him and he scored so many great goals, so he’s just a really big player – an important player in Africa. He won the Best African Footballer many, many times, so that inspired me than and it still does to this day.

“I have never met him but I would like to meet him one day just to learn from him in person.”

While Touré was often deployed as a rampaging No. 8, however, Doucouré has begun to settle into a No. 6 role at Palace.

“I used to play like that at Lens, as a sole No. 6,” he explains. “I can also play with two No. 6s in the midfield. I don’t mind, it is what the manager expects from us so I just try to give the team as much as I can. It works well at the moment.”

Nonetheless, he tries to model his game on the very best midfielders of differing varieties. Does he look towards disrupters like N’Golo Kanté, metronomes like Luka Modrić or controllers like Sergio Busquets?

“I play in the Premier League, so every week I am meeting great midfielders,” he points out. “I try to look and learn from them.

“I know I am not at their level, and there is still a lot of work to do for this. But I know I am someone who is quite calm and who tries to always be well-placed. That is very important for my position and I think it is what helps me to intercept a lot of balls.

“I always try to be available when we have the ball, because the midfield is a bit like the heart of the system. If it doesn’t work then the team doesn’t work. I try to keep myself available for the team, which is going quite well at the moment.

"It is up to me now to keep working and giving the maximum from myself.”

Doucouré has come a long way from his footballing beginnings in Guillou’s academy, and now the Premier League is becoming his latest conquest.

Behind all the adaptation and integration, all the miles run and patterns of play analysed, is a young man having fun at the very top of his game.

“I spoke with the players I know from the Mali national team: Yves Bissouma, Moussa Djenepo, Abdoulaye Doucouré. They gave me lots of advice, and told me it is a great league and I should really jump at the opportunity. They said the Premier League has so much passion. In the games there is non-stop running and high intensity.

“Having seen me play in training, they thought I had the game for this league. They said: ‘Change nothing. Just come here and you will enjoy it loads’, and that is what is happening.

"I’m just having a lot of fun playing in the Premier League.”

They say time flies – and can anyone remember Palace’s midfield without the virtually ever-present Cheick Doucouré?

Long may the good times continue.