Bryan Mbeumo has been excellent for Man Utd this season. The Manchester Evening News reveal the inside story of his rise in France.
Mbeumo came through the ranks at Troyes.(Image: Getty Images)
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Bryan Mbeumo can play Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi beautifully on the piano, and he likes playing chess and video games. Mbeumo loves nature and has described himself as a "normal guy".
There is nothing ordinary about Mbeumo when he steps onto the pitch for Manchester United, though. The 26-year-old is enjoying a wonderful first season at Old Trafford after his transfer from Brentford.
Mbeumo is United's leading goalscorer this term with 10 goals, but nobody at Old Trafford is surprised by his impact. Mbeumo established himself as one of the Premier League's most consistent performers with Brentford, and he has seamlessly adapted to life at England's most scrutinised club.
Mbeumo has not forgotten his roots amid the praise for his performances, recently inviting pupils and staff from his former school, Jeanne d'Arc La Salle in Avallon, to visit him at Carrington.
The forward was born in Avallon, a small town of just over 6,000 people, and he travelled 66 miles to Troyes to join their academy as a teenager. Mbeumo progressed through Troyes' academy, signed his first professional contract with the club and was handed his senior debut.
The French club moulded Mbeumo into a man before his transfer to Brentford, who signed him for £5.8million in the summer of 2019 following his first full season in senior football. "He was really young, but he did a fantastic season with us," Rui Almeida, former Troyes manager, told the Manchester Evening News.
"I think one of two points that I always say when I speak about Bryan is about him as a man, a human being. He was a fantastic boy, humble, coachable and always hungry to learn. So I think that made him progress really fast in his career. He worked a lot.
"That season was important for him because when you come from the youth team, you have the chance to establish yourself with the professionals. And in Ligue 2, we had the goal to be promoted to Ligue 1 and we failed by one point. So it's not easy to play in the team like that, but he did it.
"That was the first point, and the other point is about how we grew up. From a tactical point of view, he was a clear right winger with a left foot, and we tried to put him in the middle also. And we coached him, and we pushed him to go there, and after he finished the season as a striker, a second striker, sometimes with two, sometimes with one. So it was fantastic because that was what really made the difference for him."
Mbeumo playing for Troyes in October 2018.(Image: 2018 Icon Sport)
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Speaking from Morocco, where he now coaches, Almeida added: "We challenged him to play in the middle. And we told him what he needed to play in the middle, so really he understood that information, and of course I told him, there are many right wingers or left wingers, but a player that knows how to play the three positions, right, left and the middle, that is a player who is more complete.
"That is a player who can give many things to the team. You see it now at United. He works a lot for the group unit. He was like that from 19. Tactically, he works a lot for the team."
Almeida continued: "We worked on many things with him. But of course, in the last five years, he clearly did a lot of work with Brentford. At Troyes, we tried to give him a sense of movement, how he could move and anticipate the left-back or centre-back, and how he could hide from them.
"The moves that he should make to change direction to prevent the defenders from seeing his run right away. Those moves are when the team is preparing the action. So we tried to help him with that.
"I think we only helped him a little bit! But as I said, the most important thing is the talent of the player. When you are humble, and you are eager to learn and to work, I think they are good things together."
Almeida recalled the start of the 2018/19 season, when Mbeumo did not start the opening five games in Ligue 2, but there was a moment when it "clicked" for him. He explained: "Bryan wasn't playing as a starter, but he played against Clermont in the League Cup and scored a fantastic goal, an overhead kick.
"From there, I think it really clicked for him at Troyes, it gave him something that was missing. The rest of the season was a story because he scored 10 goals for us, which was really good."
Mbeumo scored an overhead kick against Clermont in August 2018.(Image: ESTAC Troyes)
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Gabriel Santos worked as Almeida's assistant manager at Troyes. He now manages Aubagne FC in France's third division. "It was a difficult moment. We didn't win any of the first five matches, but we had a cup match, and Bryan started," Santos told the MEN after an Aubagne training session.
"He made the difference. He scored an overhead kick, and every supporter thought, 'Wow, who is this?' because he had amazing talent. He did some incredible things that season.
"I remember Bryan as a very kind person, it was very easy to work with him, and he's very humble. This is for me what makes him very special. Sometimes players with great potential don't want to be humble, they think they are already very good, but it was the opposite with Bryan.
"His maturity for a young player was incredible. At the end of the training, he was a player who always wanted to work a little bit more, working on his passing, his finishing, always trying to do more and more. He wanted to learn. And because of this attitude, he grew up very fast."
Almeida added: "I still speak to Bryan sometimes, we have exchanged messages. That says a lot about Bryan, even with the level he is, we still message. I can only say congratulations, my friend, you are where you should be. Bryan was a really shy boy, so inside the dressing room he was lovely to everyone."
Rui Almeida with his former Troyes assistant, Gabriel Santos.(Image: 2019 Icon Sport)
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Pascal Faure was the head of performance at Troyes during Mbeumo's time at the club. "Bryan arrived in Troyes at 14, and he was already very strong, with a lot of power, with a very high ability to repeat actions, and the most important thing was that he was very smart," he told the MEN.
"He had a good mentality, and he is a very nice guy. And when he arrived with the first team, he quickly adapted himself to the environment, and he played very well with us. So, physically, he was very strong.
"I think during his time in Troyes, he developed his strength and his body, but when he arrived in England, it was a big step. I saw him before, and I saw him after. He was totally different because he added a lot of power in the UK, and he kept his ability to be a very good football player.
"He has a lot of power, he has the ability to start very quickly, and the most important thing is that he is able to repeat a lot of effort at very high intensity. And when he started with us in Troyes, it was the same. He has this ability to repeat very high-intensity efforts, which is very valuable."
Mbeumo's physical qualities have gone under the radar during his career. Earlier this month against West Ham at the London Stadium, Mbeumo beat Adama Traore to the ball in a 70m sprint.
The sprint was even more impressive because it was made in the 91st minute of the match. Traore had fresh legs after only coming on a minute earlier. It was Mbeumo’s 32nd sprint of the game, but he was able to hit a top speed of 34.37 km/h. Mbeumo's elite conditioning is his super strength.
"He's very strong in his body composition, no fat, very muscular," Faure explained. "He's really serious in his life, doing the right things away from the pitch, and he follows the proper way with no issues."
Mbeumo has suffered only one injury in his career, an ankle injury while playing for Brentford in December 2023. He rolled his ankle while defending against Brighton and required surgery, but he was back in action three months later. "It's very rare and, in fact, he is very robust, so it's a really good thing for him," said Faure of his injury record.
Mbeumo pictured watching a Troyes game in 2023. (Image: 2023 Icon Sport)
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Faure smiled as he explained Troyes' coaching staff would sometimes have to stop Mbeumo from doing extra work because he was already doing so much. "He improved with us during that season in Ligue 2 so much. His ability to go fast and to put in a lot of repeated efforts was amazing for the coach," he said.
"It was very great to work with him because he's very humble. He's smart, and he likes to speak with people. He has a lot of empathy. He always tried to be very kind to people, so he's a very good guy. In his mind, he thought about the squad before him, which says a lot about his character.
"I think he worked to be more confident in himself because when he was young, he sometimes thought a lot about his ability to score too much. But today, when we see him on the TV, you can see a very confident guy."
When asked whether Mbeumo's goodbye to Troyes was emotional, Faure responded: "Yeah, in fact, I think for three or four seasons, he came back every time to see the people of the academy, to see teachers, to see the director of the academy, to see his former teammates in Ligue 2 or Ligue 1.
"He spent one or two days with the people from Troyes. I think he keeps Troyes in his heart. It was amazing for everybody in Troyes when he moved to United because we think about him very often, and we are happy to see this player achieve this career because he deserves it."
Almeida believes Mbeumo now has the challenge of reaching the elite level in football. "It would be good for me to say that we knew at Troyes that he would become a top player, but I think it would be a little bit pretentious for me to say it," he said.
"Bryan had something because, of course, the things that I spoke about before, his talent to do it, he was strong, he really was fast already, he had the sense of the goal that we spoke about.
"However, I can say it in the other way. I can say that only some bad luck in his career could have prevented him from succeeding. When he went to Brentford at the end of our season, I think it was the right step to go to the Championship. That is also a tough league, but it's not the Premier League.
"Perhaps if he jumped from the French league to the Premier League, perhaps it would be a difficult move, and it wouldn't have given him the space to grow. I think the point now is, where is he now?
"He's at a top club, and it's a question of stats, to score more goals, because I think that is the goal now. Can he get to the 35/40-goal mark, to bring him to the top 10 or 15 players in the world?"
Mbeumo has the quality to reach the top level. He is just as talented on a football pitch as he is on a piano.
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