The in-form Thierno Barry reflects on the journey that took him to Everton and the driving forces that inspired him to his current hot streak in front of goal
Thierno Barry celebrates scoring during the Premier League match between Everton and Leeds United at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images
Thierno Barry celebrates scoring during the Premier League match between Everton and Leeds United at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images
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Thierno Barry ranks his audacious chip against Aston Villa as the best goal he has ever scored. That should come as no surprise.
It had everything - it was an instinctive, inch-perfect chip over a World Cup-winning goalkeeper that inspired a desperate goal-line scramble from Ezri Konsa. It gave Everton just reward for a battling, hard-fought display at a Premier League title challenger. It came under the lights of one of English football’s iconic stadiums and as the world tuned in for Sky Sports’ weekend showcase event.
It was also Barry’s first true match winner for his new club, one he had struggled to find the rhythm of for six months before hitting a streak of form bettered by few in Europe right now.
"It was clearly a very good goal," the 23-year-old smiles as he reflects on a breakout moment in his career. "I like this goal. I think it's the best goal of my little career and I hope to score a goal like this again."
After the match, Barry joined his team-mates as they celebrated with a jubilant away end. As he stood in his tracksuit, taking it all in, those supporters burst into a rendition of the song they have dedicated to him.
It was a full-circle moment for Barry, who had friends among the fans at Villa Park who recounted the love expressed towards him from their intimate viewpoint.
Two months earlier the Everton fanbase had lifted him from his knees as his goal drought continued. A difficult start to his time with the club hit rock bottom with his close-range miss at Sunderland days earlier and yet, when he walked off the pitch during the Blues' home game with Fulham less than a week later, he was met with an enormous reception as the Hill Dickinson Stadium faithful, like David Moyes had done by keeping him in his starting line-up, showed their trust in him.
The France youth international said: "Sometimes it is not about a goal, but the sentiment. My parents were watching the game and they heard the standing ovation. After the game, my mum called me and said: 'You see, the people love you. You need to give the love back'."
"Good things come to those who wait," Barry then adds. That has been true in his case. Although he sought to take positives from his tough night at the Stadium of Light, telling himself that being in a position to score a goal represented progress as he continued a months-long slog for a first shot on target in Royal Blue, it extended an agonising wait for a first goal that ended last month against Nottingham Forest when he slotted in the second in a 3-0 home win.
Of that breakthrough, he said: "I think it was the first goal of my life that gave me a lot of emotions. I talked about this goal after with Ili (Ndiaye) and he said when he scores he feels goosebumps. I can say that, because the songs in the stadium were amazing. I loved this moment.”
More have followed, including since that sublime clip at Villa, with Barry producing another fine finish to help Everton rescue a point at home to Leeds United on Monday night.
The player, who cannot stop smiling as he discusses his career in a room amid the suite of academy offices at the club’s Finch Farm training ground, is not afraid to admit it has taken him time to adapt to English football - nor that he is still very much in the learning phase.
Crucial to him in those early months was the support of Moyes. Of his input, Barry said: "I think he knows the Premier League. I remember when I talked with him one time and said I am not happy about my situation because I didn’t play.
"He told me: 'I just need to take my time, I have seen a lot of young players come here who play good for the first two or three months and then do nothing. I want you to give me your confidence and after we can talk again in a few months'."
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That Barry is taking time to adapt should come as little shock. Not only is he a young player in a new league and a new country (his English, like his goalscoring, has progressed significantly) but he is, to an extent, in a new role. It was only at his last club, Villarreal, that he started to play as an out and out forward. Before then, with Swiss club Basel and Belgian outfit Beveren, he typically operated from the left wing.
He scored goals at all of those clubs, hence only spending a year at each before eventually stepping up to Everton with a £27m move in the summer. But, unlike so many of those around him, Barry’s route to stardom has not been straightforward - he did not rise through an academy and instead spent his youth in amateur football.
He suffered rejection, too, first through a trial at French side Clermont and then, as an 18-year-old, in Scotland when he was turned down by Hamilton Academical.
He recalled: "I had one in Clermont but I played as a centre back then at Under-17s. They said: 'We have a player like you, so no'. And at U19s, I went to Scotland to Hamilton Academical. I played as a number six. They said: 'We have a player like you', again.”
Despite those setbacks, he never stopped believing this was where he would end up: "I always trusted in this because I could just play football - I could not do another thing - so in my head I said: 'Yes'. I didn't have a Plan B.
"The first plan was to become a football player and I just did everything I could. I did it the long way - but a good, long way. Sometimes I watch my old videos when I talk about my future. I love my past."