Italy growing Kean on rising star

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This article was published 29/03/2019 (2696 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Calcio’s newest sensation is 19 years old and the son of Ivorian immigrants. He lives with his mother, who says his birth was a miracle. And, according to his national team manager, Moises Kean has no idea how good he is.

“Kean is fortunately so young that he doesn’t really feel the pressure of a high-profile match,” remarked Italy boss Roberto Mancini ahead of Tuesday’s Euro 2020 qualifier at home to Lichtenstein.

The youngster rewarded him with a headed goal in a 6-0 win. It was his second goal in two starts for the Azzurri, the first having come just three days prior against Finland when his well-timed run took him between two defenders, from where he calmly stroked the ball into the back of the net.

“I think Kean is destined for greatness,” Mancini added in an interview with RAI. “He is a player with a lot of quality, is improving all the time and I believe can become a very important player.”

Juventus, no doubt, is similarly hopeful. With Cristiano Ronaldo sidelined by injury until the second week of April, Kean will play three consecutive matches for La Vecchia Signora, including today’s contest against Empoli at Allianz Stadium. It will be only his second start for the club this season. In his first, he needed just 11 minutes and a single, stabbed touch of Alex Sandro’s cross to open the scoring against Udinese, and shortly before the break he completed his brace when he poked the ball inside the near post following a confident dribble in the attacking third.

“I learn from Cristiano Ronaldo,” he said following the Finland win, which Il Corriere dello Sport celebrated with the headline “Yes We Kean.”

“In training I steal his secrets.”

Kean is also friends with erstwhile Italy international Mario Balotelli — a relationship his father has cautioned against. “Mario Balotelli is his favourite player now, even though I told him not to copy Balotelli in everything,” he recently told RAI, hinting at the Marseille striker’s notorious volatility.

Biorou Kean has also taken credit for his son’s decision to join Juventus and in his rambling RAI interview also declared his preference for Italy’s far-right League party and its xenophobic leader Matteo Salvini. Juventus, he also claimed, still owed him two tractors in exchange for Moise’s signature.

“Tractors?” I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the younger Kean posted in an Instagram story this week, seemingly distancing himself from his father. “If I’m the man I am today, it’s thanks and only to my mother.”

His mother, Isabelle, says his birth was a “true miracle.”

“The doctors told me that I could not have other children. I cried and prayed,” she told Tuttosport on Monday. “One night I dreamed of Moses. He had come to help me, and after four months I was pregnant again.”

After signing his first professional contract, Moise telephoned his mother, who was working in Asti at the time, and told her she could quit her job if she wanted, that they could live together in Turin. They still do, and Isabelle says her son dribbles around with a football as soon as he comes home from training or playing matches.

It’s enthusiasm that is delightfully evident when he’s on the pitch as well.

A right-footed forward who prefers to line up in the centre of the attack, Kean routinely drops deep into the build-up so as to put his dribbling skills to work. He loves to run at defenders, who so far can’t seem to handle him, the ball at his feet, a shimmy this way and that emulating, as he has said, his teammate Ronaldo. But it’s his body language — his exuberance, enthusiasm, that smile — that is so fetching and that has quickly turned him into a local and national star.

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A brand-new bumper contract is inevitably in store for him, as agent Mino Raiola stated on Facebook on Tuesday, admitting that he had tried to move Kean to AC Milan in January so as to procure more playing time for his client. He has said he’ll ensure regular first-team minutes are built into the upcoming pact, although it doesn’t seem likely that Juventus will need much convincing.

Kean is a phenom — exactly the sort of player Italy needs and his club’s successor to Ronaldo. He was the first player born after 2000 to play and score in a top European league, and he’s still on an entry-level deal. He has no idea, like Mancini said, how good he is and how great he can be. That’ll come. But for now he’s simply a kid who wakes up, has breakfast with his mom and goes out to play a little football.

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