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Yan Diomande has been the most sought-after winger in world football this summer, with Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool both trying to sign the 19-year-old wide player.

In the end, however, it was Real Madrid who won the battle, paying a club-record €125 million plus €15 million in bonuses and tying him down on a contract until 2033. Yet only two years ago, barely any club was prepared to gamble on him. At that stage, Diomande was simply an unknown teenager chasing his ambition of becoming a professional footballer.

When Diomande was only 15, he booked a solo one-way flight from Ivory Coast to Florida, where he began his development at DME Academy. Even though he did not speak any English, Diomande adapted rapidly to life in his new environment in Daytona Beach and stood out for both DME and their semi-professional affiliate side, AS Frenzi.

Diomande led Frenzi to the 2023 United Premier Soccer League title, claiming both the Playoffs MVP and Golden Boot, but that still did not lead to a professional contract, as clubs in MLS and Europe passed over the gifted teenager.

“I think he did slip through the cracks,” his former coach Todd Eason told FourFourTwo. “We were in Daytona, 45 minutes from Orlando City, and at the time, I had told some representatives at Orlando City, ‘Hey, I’ve got a kid coming that looks pretty special, and I would love him to come down and train with the B team.’ But they just kept delaying and delaying.”

“I was very disappointed that Orlando City wouldn’t come 45 minutes to watch him or at least take them into camp,” added Eason, who served as DME’s Director of Soccer and then Director of Athletics from 2021 to 2024. Eason now works as the General Manager of USL Championship club Miami FC.

“I do think MLS teams have probably dropped the ball a lot on some domestic talent that have come through, but every team’s a little bit different, so you can’t really speak on all that. Orlando City was the one that I was really disappointed in: you couldn’t go out of your way to see this kid play, and now you lost your chance.”

After being turned down by Orlando City and also by European clubs such as Rangers, Chelsea and Bournemouth, Diomande went back to Abidjan once his student visa expired. Soon afterwards, Spanish side Leganes signed him in November 2024, and after only 10 professional appearances, he secured a €20 million move to RB Leipzig.

What followed was remarkable: Diomande quickly developed into one of the most thrilling talents in the German top division, winning the Bundesliga Rookie of the Season award. He also became an important figure for the Ivory Coast national team, scoring at the Africa Cup of Nations and helping Les Elephants reach a World Cup knockout match for the first time.

After helping lift RB Leipzig from seventh place in 2024/25 – the worst finish in their Bundesliga history – to third place in 2025/26, Diomande is now set to test himself in the Champions League. He will not be doing so with Leipzig, but with Real Madrid, who are chasing a record-extending 16th title.

It has been a journey a decade in the making for Diomande, who left his family at the age of nine to join Academie Inter Foot Sud Comoe and then moved alone to a new continent at 15. Every step was taken with one aim: to receive a world-class football education and become good enough to lift his family out of poverty.

Two years after being overlooked, Diomande is now in the spotlight and will aim to nail down a starting place on the right side of Real Madrid’s attack alongside Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Jr. And although he never got the chance to make his professional debut there, he will always remain thankful for his time with Eason in the Sunshine State.

“I think I’m just most proud that he still answers my calls,” Eason added. “He’s just very true to the people that mean the most to him, and I think that’s a true testament of who he is. That’s what I’m proud of: that he’s a good, respectful man, and is still paying attention to the people that have helped him in his life in some way.”

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