Overcoming it all – Yan Diomande's tricky path to Bundesliga stardom

Overcoming it all – Yan Diomande's tricky path to Bundesliga stardom Your browser does not support the video tag. Yan Diomande may be one of the hottest prospects in the Bundesliga and world football right now, but the road to RB Leipzig was nothing short of challenging. The Ivory Coast winger revealed it an in-house interview that all was not harmonious during his formative years.

"I was born in Abidjan, like in an area called Sicogi. I left my family to come to a village for football. My dad left and he went to France, we didn't have a good situation at home so I decided to go away to play football," Diomande said, speaking to RB Leipzig media.

"We have a lot of passion for football there, we like football a lot. Everyone is playing on the street and it's really nice, but we don't play with this [football boots] just shoes. To play with boots you have to have money, so somebody bought them for me because I didn't have money and nor did my family," he explained.

As the 19-year-old passed through a gallery of pictures from his childhood set up by Leipzig, he paused to look at images of his academy football team in Ivory Coast and of him proudly smiling while lifting his first trophy after he made the move to the USA, joining the DME Academy in Florida. "I still have the same connection [with my childhood team] we have one group chat. A lot of them are still playing football and are professionals.