Continuing his good performances, the last of which against the Rangers, Malick Fofana was called up to the Red Devils for the first time. The young Lyonnais has three goals in his last two matches.
“A benchmark tenure,” said Pierre Sage after Lyon’s victory in the Europa League. Against Glasgow Rangers, the young Belgian winger (19 years old) opened the scoring, then offered Lacazette a caviar, to finally score a double, to close OL’s big victory (4-1).
In full explosion at the start of the season, the promising striker went from supersub to super starter. Five days ago, Fofana came on against Toulouse and gave his team victory in the 90th +5. On this momentum, the former La Gantoise player is unanimous within the Rhone squad. “This little one is a phenomenon, it’s a phenomenon, we, the experienced players, are here to give advice and above all to protect him,” confided his teammate Niakhaté after the meeting on Thursday evening.
In addition to Malick Fofana’s technical qualities which are obvious, his partners also praise his state of mind. “Malick, honestly, he is a player who is just incredible, who has a magnificent mentality. He is a worker. I think he is aware of his qualities and that is very important. He did a good, great preparation and we see it in his matches,” says midfielder Caqueret. “Today, he was even disappointed at the end not to have scored the hat-trick because he knows he could have scored it, but it shows the state of mind he has, it’s a great guy, he listens, he wants to progress, he’s hungry,” adds Niakhaté.
A reward: the selection
Last September, Malick Fofana was with the Belgian Espoirs and even scored a goal against Kazakhstan. Since then, his performances have won over and the left winger is climbing the ranks. Thursday evening, Rangers coach Philippe Clément, a native of Antwerp in Belgium, relished that this “young player full of qualities” was Belgian. “He has proven in Europe against us, but also in the championship and in the U20s. It is good for Belgian football to have young players like that who can prove in big clubs like Lyon that they are capable of playing with the Red Devils in the future,” he said.
This Friday, Domenico Tedesco chose to reward the young Lyonnais by calling him up for the first time with the national team, taking advantage of the absences of Lukaku and De Bruyne. Two oppositions against Italy (October 10) and France (October 14) await the Red Devils, where the twirling winger could show himself.
