SHINE LIKE A DIOMANDE

Yan Diomande only graduated from school two years ago – now he’s one of the most wanted young footballers in the world

«When Dio got here, I was like, ‘holy cow this kid

is much better than anyone I have seen’»

   - Diomande’s former coach, Todd Eason

Words: Bence Bocsak

WORLD SOCCER - April 2026

Working as a director of soccer at the DME Academy, an elite private sports school in Florida, Todd Eason has seen plenty of talented kids from all over the globe. But none of them were quite like Yan Diomande.

“Yan came to us from one of our partners in Africa,” Eason, the school’s former director of soccer, tells World Soccer. “I knew right away there was something different about him.”

Eason had seen clips of Diomande as a 15-year-old scoring goals for fun at the West African Football Union Under-17 tournament, prompting him to bring the player over from the Ivory Coast. Four years on, he is an Ivory Coast international, a regular in the Bundesliga and a transfer target for a host of elite European clubs.

Last summer, RB Leipzig paid Spanish side Leganes €20 million for Diomande. If reports are to be believed, the 19-year-old will be on the move again in 2026 for a much bigger fee. His valuation has shot up due not only to an impressive debut campaign in the German top flight but also by helping his national team reach the AFCON quarter-finals earlier this year in Morocco. The upcoming World Cup will provide a platform for Diomande to enhance his reputation further.

It has been a rapid ascent, one that began with the decision to leave his home in Abidjan for Florida. Leaving his family behind was tough on the teenager, but his advisors thought that the experience would better prepare him for the challenge of stepping into professional football.

DME has hundreds of pupils from across the globe, but was chosen by Diomande and is family due to the school’s record with athletes from Africa. The football team, run by Eason, included players from the Ivory Coast, Senegal and South Sudan, which meant Diomande would share a dressing room with players from similar cultures and backgrounds.

In this environment, Diomande very quickly shone. For Eason, the thing that set the new recruit apart from his peers was his intelligence.

“He could see things and he knew what was being asked of him without having things explained to him,” Eason says. “When I worked with him, he would basically be the translator for me with the other French-speaking kids because he could pick up and understand what I was doing. He was very helpful. When I saw that, I knew there was something special about him. He’s just got an unbelievable IQ for the game of football.”

Eason’s job was to guide Diomande throughout the two years he spent at DME. But at first, he was simply blown away by his talent.

“The one thing that Yan is so gifted with is running at speed with the ball and being under control. He wasn’t always focused on one-v-ones, but the things that he could do running at pace with the ball under control was something that I hadn’t seen.

“I’ve coached a lot of African kids, and Spanish and South American kids. I just thought Yan was different in how he could manipulate the ball at pace. That was one thing that I knew was going to get him to the next level. His decision-making and ability on the ball were second to none.”

Despite Diomande’s ability to beat everyone on the field, he would often be searching for his team-mates rather than looking to do it all himself.

“He was such a dominant player, but he was always looking to lay balls off to our number nine or whatnot; he wasn’t selfish at all,” Eason says. “There were a lot of times when I knew he could do it. There were times that he could just take over a game if he wanted to and score, but he never did. He was a very unselfish player.

“We actually tried to get him to recognise the times to be selfish and then recognise the times that being able to lay balls off was a better option.

“He had such an intelligence and humility for the game. Dio wasn’t coming here and saying, ‘I’m using my athleticism, I’m using my strength to win games.’ He was really just kind of preparing himself to be a complete player every day, always wanting to learn and always seeking to be a better player rather than just getting by on his one great skill or his own innate ability.”

It wasn’t all easy going for Diomande in the beginning. A new environment comes with new challenges. Being so much better than everyone else will naturally attract adversaries on the pitch. Players tried to target him and get in his head. Diomande struggled overcoming these nerves and challenges at the start.

Eason stepped in to help him become more mindful on the pitch and to be able to shut out the outside noise.

“We focused a lot on controlling his emotions. He was exposed to situations on the field and off the field that challenged him in terms of how he would decide to handle it,” Eason explains. “On the pitch, there were times where the opposition got to him. I think he got a red card in his second game. So, we had to help him understand that those kinds of things are going to happen. You’re going to have players picking and trying to draw you to get cards.

“And then there were things off the field socially, you know, making sure he’s making good decisions.”

Diomande learned quickly. Within just a few months, he was starting to attract the attention of scouts from across the globe. He first went on trial to MLS clubs, and then went to the UK for spells at Rangers, Chelsea and Bournemouth.

All passed on offering him a contract, but Diomande used the experiences to learn and become better.

“My assistant coach did a lot of individual training and small group training with him,” Eason says. “One thing they tried to focus on was working on his left foot a little bit more because as a winger, he always wanted to play left-wing so he can cut in and go on his right. And I think through some of these trials he went on, they put him on the right side and asked him to do more things on his left foot. At that point, Dio recognised that he needed to get stronger with his left foot.”

A few years later, the fruit of that work is clear. That weakness has become Diomande’s strength; out of his first ten senior goals at club level, five were scored with his left foot.

It is this constant development that convinces Eason that Diomande is set for the top.

“When Dio got here, I was like, ‘holy cow this kid is much better than anyone I have seen.’ I thought it would be easy for him to get to MLS,” Eason says. “But then as he went on all these other trials, I started realising there’s something bigger here. I kept trying to schedule games that would challenge him and there wasn’t one game I could create that would give him a challenge. We even went down and played Colorado Rapids in pre-season, and we ended up beating them 4-3, and it was all because of Dio.”

On his 18th birthday, in November 2024, Diomande agreed to join Leganes, then in La Liga. The plan was for him to play for the club’s reserve team, but within a few months, he came on to make his debut for the senior side against Real Madrid in March 2025.

He went on to play all of Leganes’ last ten games of the La Liga season. By the end of the campaign, he wasn’t just playing but standing out with his performances in a struggling side, one that would go on to be relegated.

“As soon as he started playing a few games there [at Leganes], I was like, ‘he’s not going to stop,’” says Eason. “In a short time, he became the most dominant player on the pitch and that’s when I realised, he needs to go to an even higher level.”

A number of clubs wanted Diomande last summer, but Leipzig ultimately won the race for his services. And just as he had done at DME and Leganes, he settled in instantly and already seems ready for the next challenge. In October, he got his first taste of international football and scored in each of his first two appearances. In December, back at Leipzig, he became the second-youngest hat-trick scorer in Bundesliga history.

“This kid just continues to raise the level to be the best player on any field,” Eason says.

Where next? Depending on what you read, it could be Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona or any number of Champions League sides. As far as Eason is concerned, wherever it is, Diomande will be ready.

“I have no idea how much further he can go. There’s no level that can contain him. He is that special.”