Fearless: The Amazing Underdog Story of Leicester City, the Greatest Miracle in Sports History by Jonathan Northcroft

Author:Jonathan Northcroft [Northcroft, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781568589831
Publisher: Nation Books
Published: 2016-11-21T23:00:00+00:00

Riyad Mahrez was born to Ahmed, an Algerian electrical engineer, who fixed traffic lights, and Halima, a Moroccan, who both came to France and settled in Sarcelles – one of the vast banlieues (suburban estates) around the rim of Paris. There was Wahid, his older brother and, after his parents split up, stepsisters, Dounya and Innes.

He grew up with a ball at his feet (or his knee, his neck, or shoulder, or chest – for he would juggle it all day and his control was extraordinary). He was 15 when a longstanding heart condition took Ahmed, at the age of just 54. Mahrez has always felt Algerian on account of his dad and said there was never any question of him playing for France. And it tickles him, now, as a Leicester player, that the Algeria national team are Les Fennecs – the Desert Foxes.

He got more serious about football, he admits, after his father’s death. He played for the local team, AAS Sarcelles, up through the age groups with certain brilliance. And yet every year when the scouts came it was the bigger, more muscled, kids that they took away to the professional academies. There is now even less on him than Vardy. So when friends and peers left for Paris Saint-Germain, Toulouse, Guingamp . . . Riyad was always left back in the banlieue.

An agent put him on a plane to Scotland – and that ended farcically. At St Mirren, in Paisley, he played four reserve friendlies and scored seven goals, but the club made him wait. There was snow, and the uncertainty drove him mad. One day he skipped his hotel, racing down the back stairs so the landlady would not spot him. He jumped on a bus, reached Glasgow airport and took the first plane home. At last, at 18, Mahrez was offered a trial in France. But it was at Quimper – a medieval town, stuck right out on the arm of Brittany, 300 miles away. The train cost 160 euros. Halima, a cleaner, had to really scrape the money together. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back,’ Riyad said. One of his proudest moments was enabling his mum to give up her cleaning work.

Quimper liked him. But they were a tiny team. Sorry, no cash, no contract, they said. Mahrez called his mother, heaving with tears and Quimper’s president, seeing the kid’s hunger, found enough to stump up for a modest deal.

In Quimper, he lived ‘like a student’. He shared a flat with Mathias Pogba – brother of Paul – living on takeaways, bad meats, fries. The apartment was so messy he was ashamed to invite his mum to come and stay and there were long months between his visits home to Sarcelles.

And here was another thing. Pogba told him that though he was good he just had to build himself up, but though he tried, no amount of eating could make him gain weight. And even though the coaches tried to teach him not

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