At just 19 years of age, Yann Gboho is enjoying a quick rise in French football at Rennes, to the extent where Julien Stéphan, his manager, trusted him to start against Chelsea in the Champions League.
He only played 62 minutes of the game and wasn’t able to have a lot of impact in the scoreline, which ended in favour of the Blues by a 3-0 margin, but the young forward wasn’t put off in the slightest by the challenge at hand.
Slowly but surely carving himself a place in his manager’s plans, Gboho was interview by Ouest-France recently, who asked him all about his recent performances when thrown in at the deep end against the likes of Chelsea in Europe’s best club competition with its mythical music.
He said: “It’s a childhood dream. The past few years, I was watching it from my sofa, there I was on the pitch. My parents were watching me. There was a lot of joy, a lot of pride”.
Asked if there was any pressure, he added: “No, not at all. If you’re there, it’s because you deserve to be. We play our games fully, without pressure. You’re happy to play against the big European teams, but it doesn’t overwhelm us. We stay humble and play our game”.
Rrennes have only picked up the one point in the Champions League so far, in a 1-1 draw against Krasnodar in their opening game, and have since lost all three matches, two against Chelsea and the other against Sevilla away.
Speaking of the Blues, Ouest-France asked Gboho which players from Frank Lampard’s squad impressed him the most.
His answer? “Thiago Silva, for his calmness. N’Golo Kanté because he sweeps up a lot of balls”.
