Aurélien Tchouaméni: Meet the French soccer star everyone is talking about
Aurelien Tchouaméni, a 31-year-old midfielder who plays for Saint-Étienne in the French Premier League, has been dubbed “The Golden Boy.’’ The son of Zoli Tchouaméni, whose native Champs-Élysées is Paris’s oldest boulevard, it is well known that both men have been closely linked with the French national team. While his father has also been a star player, and a key member (along with Gino Iafrate) of the 1974 World Cup championship team, Aurelien is the only Tchouaméni not to play in the national team. As a result of this, he was called up to become the best footballer in the world after the 2014 World Cup.
And he’s not shy about his goal. While preparing for the tournament, he was asked by an interviewer, “How many goals do you think you can score this year?’’ Tchouaméni replied: “No. It’s impossible to get to 100 goals in a season, 100 in a season. The World Cup is different. I will get to 100 goals this year, and in the national team I will get to 200 goals this season.’’
What makes Tchouaméni different from the other top players is that he has taken an unusual and unexpected path. Born in France, he has lived most of his life in the United States. During his childhood, he was often sent to live with relatives in France. When he was 13, he went to live with his mother’s family in Paris, where he developed a passion for the game and fell completely in love with its stars. He was so captivated by a young Frank Lampard, who was still a teenager, that he became obsessed with the sport.
“I knew that I wanted to play soccer. I even asked my mother if I could go to France to live with [my aunt] Marie-Louise to learn to play the game with her team. I was going to stay one year. When
