Gus Poyet smiles when he recalls his first impressions of two youngsters he met when he became Bordeaux manager in January 2018.
“Players always remember who gave them their debut,” Poyet says. “I stayed in contact with Jules Kounde for some years and when Aurelien Tchouameni signed for Madrid he was telling me how happy he was. Over the years, whenever there have been conversations with other clubs, or with other coaches, I have the good fortune to be able to say they were two kids who gave me everything. Now, I am so happy to see them at Barcelona and Real Madrid.”
Barcelona’s Kounde and Madrid’s Tchouameni have come a long way in the five years since, while Poyet is now manager of the Greek national team.
The Uruguayan is enjoying telling The Athletic how the teenagers were similar in their eagerness to learn and improve, and also in having natural qualities that needed to be moulded to make it to the top.
Kounde and Tchouameni played together for France in the World Cup final in December. They faced off for the first time in October’s La Liga Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu, when Tchouameni’s side ran out 3-1 winners.
Bordeaux ► Equipe de France ► Clasico
— RMC Sport (@RMCsport) July 28, 2022
🔥 Aurélien Tchouaméni et Jules Koundé… Toujours ensemble ces deux-là. pic.twitter.com/XlYP5PBJvD
Tchouameni missed the Supercopa de Espana in January through injury, but both should be ready to start Thursday’s Copa del Rey semi-final first leg between Real and Barca at the Bernabeu.
“It will be great,” Poyet says. “I never miss a Clasico, so imagine how much I am looking forward to this one. I hope they both have good games, enjoy themselves, and that the best team wins. My team in Spain is Real Zaragoza, so in the Clasico I just want the best team to win.”
When Poyet was appointed by Bordeaux in January 2018, Kounde had just turned 19 and had made four senior appearances for the Ligue 1 side.
“Jules played a lot at right-back before joining the first team, but as soon as I saw him at training, I knew he was my right-sided centre-half,” Poyet says. “I had zero doubts. He had such personality, he wanted to learn, he was physically gifted, even though he is not so tall, he is very good in the air, he is strong. He allowed you to play a very high defensive line as he is so fast. He was just what I like in a centre-half. We shared an idea of football; what I liked him to do was what he liked doing himself.”
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The youngster did not look like a traditional centre-back at first glance, but he had the rare characteristics that Poyet required for his team to play a modern, high-pressing style with a high defensive line.
“Some centre-backs are very tall, some are good on the ball, some are very strong with presence,” adds the former Brighton, Sunderland and Real Betis boss. “But there are very few who can play so high up the pitch, who have the pace and power to defend with space behind them. He had that then, and you could see it would take him to a top team. To play with so much space behind you, you have to be able to read the game very well, like Gerard Pique. Or have that great physical power.”
Poyet and his assistant Mauricio Taricco worked a lot on the training ground with the young Kounde, particularly on his distribution and playmaking from deep.
“When the opposition team has just one (player) forward, your centre-back has to bring the ball out, join in the play, to create superiority,” he says. “He did that perfectly, tremendously. He was very comfortable when he had to find the right-back, the winger, the midfielder, or go long. But the diagonal, over to the other wing, he wanted to work on. He asked me if we could come back and work with him individually in the afternoons. I was delighted to. That has not happened to me often, and he was so young.”
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Poyet says he and Kounde also bonded over a common interest in the NBA.
“I am an NBA fanatic — above all, the time of Michael Jordan,” the Uruguayan says. “Jules is also a tremendous NBA fan. We spoke a lot about that. He was a real basketball player — always bouncing the football, always with an NBA jersey. And he has tremendous power in his jump. He has the characteristics of a basketball athlete.”
During his time as Sunderland manager from 2013-2015, Poyet incorporated NBA drills into his training sessions. He is careful to say the two sports are very different but adds there are areas of similarity that can be worked on.
“Defensively, when you are marking man to man at a corner, it is very similar to basketball,” he says. “You have to see the ball, and see the player you are marking. That is similar to man-to-man marking in basketball, where you cannot let your man get behind you. I played a lot of basketball as a kid, which helped me a lot with my jumping to head the ball, positions to take up when marking, or how to get away from a man marker too. Jules has that too.”
Poyet says he started to use these ideas when planning attacking set pieces with Bordeaux, particularly on how his players attacked the ball when it was in the air. That paid off quickly, as Kounde scored twice within his first 16 starts in Ligue 1.
“When training set pieces, we began to work on aggression — not in kicking someone, but aggression in the decision-making,” he says. “To say, ‘I’m going to win this ball, and the next one, and the next one’. Jules scored a goal in Saint-Etienne from having this attacking aggression. The first header rebounded and he was the player who used his strength to get there and smashed it in. Jules liked to have this responsibility, despite being a defender, (where) he was asked to do damage in the opposition area.”
During his first months in the Bordeaux job, Poyet also kept a close eye on the development of another top prospect emerging from the club’s youth ranks, including him in training and putting him on the bench for a few Ligue 1 games.
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“You could see Tchouameni had huge power and presence,” he says. “So that summer I wanted him to do pre-season with me. He was 18. And he was so calm and knew how to handle himself. I could see he was ready to play — I gave him his debut in the Europa League, the early rounds, he scored a goal.”
That debut came in a Europa League preliminary round game against Latvian side Ventspils in July 2018, and the goal was a left-footed strike against Mariupol of Ukraine in the next round.
That showed the effect the midfielder could have going forward, although Poyet says he and the precocious teenager debated how his skills could best help the team.
“I wanted him to play a bit further forward, for what the team needed, but he wanted to play as a No 6,” Poyet says. “I was trying to push him up the pitch, he wanted to stay back. When he was younger he played further forward, almost in attack. He had that ability, had that timing in the air, could shoot with his right or his left. We watched videos of his games together, to give him my opinion, to help him. He was such an intelligent kid, he was studying and thinking of what courses he would take in the future.”
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Poyet had no hesitation in giving Tchouameni his debut as a No 8 on the opening day of the 2018-19 Ligue 1 season. But their relationship did not really get a chance to develop, as Poyet soon left Bordeaux following a disagreement with the club hierarchy about transfer policy.
The Uruguayan kept a close eye on Tchouameni after he left, with the midfielder developing under other coaches including Paulo Sousa at Bordeaux, Niko Kovacs at Monaco and, in particular, under Didier Deschamps with France.
“With his characteristics, his coaches started to move him back,” Poyet says. “And he felt very comfortable in front of the defence, with the play in front of him, he felt he had control of everything he could see. He can do the job of a No 8, no problem, but he has adapted very well to the role of No 6, or in a double No 6 (formation). He does it extraordinarily well. He has a tremendous capacity for regaining the football. Then with the ball, he is a fine player, very elegant. He knows where his team-mates are. He can perform in both roles, so for a coach that gives you tremendous possibilities.”
Kounde and Tchouameni took an intermediate step between Bordeaux and the Clasico giants. Kounde spent three years at Sevilla, winning the Europa League in 2020 and gaining Champions League experience, before moving to Barcelona for €50million (£43m; $53m) last summer.
“Last summer was the moment for Kounde to move on from Sevilla,” Poyet says. “He had learned sufficiently La Liga. Now it was time to make that jump up again. It is a different Barca and (there was) no better moment to join with what they were doing. Kounde is a player made for Barcelona, for his style of play, I have no doubts about that.”
Tchouameni spent 18 months at Monaco, playing 11 times across the Champions League and Europa League in the 2021-22 season, before making his €80m move to Real Madrid last summer.
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That was a big step up, but Poyet was confident Tchouameni could manage it, even without the team’s long-serving holding midfielder Casemiro there to help him settle in.
“I knew Aurelien had the personality needed when I saw him with the France national team, with top players around him,” Poyet says. “I was so relaxed and happy, thinking he would not need to go straight into the team as Casemiro was there, and they had Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Eduardo Camavinga, there was no rush. But then Casemiro left (to join Manchester United), and there was a rush: he had to be ready to play. And he has been — so now I am even happier that he is doing so well.”
Tchouameni has mostly played as the holding midfielder in Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti’s preferred 4-3-3 system, although sometimes it is Kroos who fills in deeper. That allows the 23-year-old to use his gifts further forward.
“I see him as a No 6, 100 per cent — especially in Madrid’s system,” Poyet says. “Tchouameni has the physique and the strength to get forward, and he has the quality and the final pass that he can play. Kroos might decide to stay back and build the play with his passes. Ancelotti knows more than me about how they should play together.”
At Barca, coach Xavi has often used Kounde at right-back this season, and either the 24-year-old or fellow centre-back Ronald Araujo is likely to be picked there for Thursday’s game.
“I respect a lot the coach, who knows very well the players he has,” Poyet says. “Kounde is an excellent player for Barca — either a full-back or centre-back. But for me, respecting everyone, I like him a lot as a centre-back. He is a player who can play with the high defensive line and also has the ability to come out with the ball from the back and create superiority, and then he has the pace to recover.”
(Top photo: Diego Souto/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
