Tiemoué Bakayoko

Rennes

Bakayoko made his debut for the Ligue 1 team on 24 August 2013 in a Ligue 1 match against Évian TG, playing the whole match in a 2–1 away win.

Monaco

2014–2016

Bakayoko joined Monaco in July 2014 for £7 million, and made his debut for the club on 10 August 2014 in a Ligue 1 match against Lorient. He was replaced by Valère Germain after 32 minutes in a 2–1 home loss. His early substitution by Monaco manager Leonardo Jardim created a strained relationship between the two, with Bakayoko saying: "From then on, something was a little broken between him and me". After his debut, Bakayoko didn't start another match for over two months, with the remainder of his season blighted by injuries and inconsistent form. Difficulties between Jardim continued, with Bakayoko feeling unfairly treated by his manager who had become frustrated at Bakayoko's progress, questioned his attitude during training and was critical of Bakayoko for sometimes being late for meetings.

2016–17

Following his first two seasons at Monaco, in which he made 31 Ligue 1 performances, Bakayoko decided to change his behaviour to fulfil his potential, which included moving from a luxury villa to an apartment and changing the colour of his car from pink to black. Additionally, he began boxing, changed his diet and improved his strength. He was helped by former France international Claude Makélélé, who had been appointed director of football at Monaco in 2016, on how to…

Bakayoko was a finalist in the 2014 Toulon Tournament. Bakayoko was called up to the senior France squad for the first time to face Luxembourg and Spain in March 2017 after Paul Pogba withdrew through injury. He made his debut on 28 March 2017 against the latter, replacing Adrien Rabiot at half-time of a 2–0 friendly home loss. He was approached by the Ivory Coast national team before he chose France in 2017. With only one cap for France in a friendly match, he remains eligible to switch nationality.

Bakayoko has been compared to Yaya Touré due to his strong all-round qualities of pace, intelligent reading of the game, ability to intercept passes and accomplished tackling, passing and dribbling, as well as being physically powerful and athletic. He plays as a centre midfielder in the centre of the pitch, breaking up attacks and making driving forward runs; as such, he has also been labelled a "box-to-box midfielder." Bakayoko's manager at Monaco, Leonardo Jardim, said: "He wins a lot of balls, brings balance to the team. He passes the ball well and wins his duels. That is Bakayoko's role." France manager Didier Deschamps described Bakayoko as "a complete midfielder", and said: "He has an important athletic presence, he's good at recovery, he scores decisive goals and is able to project himself." His manager at Milan, Gennaro Gattuso, said that Bakayoko plays as a deep-lying midfielder in an atypical way, because sometimes prefers to point and go past the opponent instead of launching the ball, so creating a numerical advantage in favour of his team.

Bakayoko was born in Paris and played for Paris 15e Olympique at the age of five. Aged nine, he played for CA Paris Charenton before moving to Montrouge FC 92. As a young player, Bakayoko suffered a broken leg which stopped him playing football for eight months. In 2008, at the age of 13, he joined the academy at Rennes. At 14, he was rejected by the renowned Clairefontaine academy.