Bradley Barcola, a timely breakout

The scene takes place on 4 April 2015 in Orvault (Loire-Atlantique), on the outskirts of Nantes. The Gagné stadium hosts the Mini-Mondial, as it does every year on the Easter weekend. A tournament reserved for U11 and U13, where the biggest French clubs, as well as some big European teams, compete. In the cool of this Saturday morning, a ray of sunshine illuminated the many spectators of this traditional Easter meeting: a young 12-year-old striker from Olympique Lyonnais named Bradley Barcola rose into the Orval sky and hit a spectacular return to give his team. the advantage.

More than 600 kilometers away, in Villeurbanne (Rhône), the video will run on a loop in Yves Barcola’s living room, from the following Monday. “He also scored after a slalom during this tournament”, the father recalls. At that time, the man of Togolese origin did not miss a bit of his offspring’s performances. Heating engineer, and often on call at weekends, he cannot travel to all the fields in France to observe the young striker. Camera in hand, his wife films his fights for him to watch. “Another player’s father started. We gave him a USB key, he put the video on it, but it took a long time. Above all, he focused on the whole team. Sometimes I wanted to see Bradley, but he wasn’t on the screen. So my wife started filming, focusing on him. »

Overtime on the Iris pitch

Very present to support their children – Malcolm, Bradley’s older brother, now 24, also attended the Olympic training center – the Barcolas, however, knew how to keep a certain distance from the teachers. “The father and mother were still there at the edge of the field. But they didn’t interfere too much in football.”, explains Mehdi Ghazel, Bradley Barcola’s first coach at AS Buers, in U6 and U8. A rarity in an age where parents sometimes see their son as a goose that lays golden eggs and demand guarantees from the first year of football.

“They never claimed anything”agrees Cyrille Dolce, coach of the international Espoirs in U15. “To be honest with you, I don’t know his parents”supports Éric Hély, who had Barcola under his command in the U19s. “We did not try to influence him in relation to the coaches’ instructionsspecifies Yves Barcola. We never went to ask them…