Any team in need of a player with outstanding scorer qualities, was Dieter Hecking, the coach of Borussia Mönchengladbach, as he presented in the summer, the record transfer of the club: Alassane Pléa, a Frenchman, for 23 million euros from the OGC nice, on the lower Rhine changed.
The 25-Year-old has integrated so fast that he makes, along with Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer this season, Robert Lewandowski FC Bayern serious competition in the fight for the top scorer cannon.
Pléa is very much responsible for Gladbach’s good start to the season, the Borussia-Park on Sunday would like to continue with the match against Mainz 05 (18: 00, Sky and in the WORLD-live Ticker). Already in his first competitive game for Gladbach Pléa in the DFB met Cup three times, and since he is allowed to storm into the League from the beginning, he is involved in every game at a goal. It is just one and a half years, that he had to lay in a hospital bed and the fear that it is finally nothing more to do with the big career in football.
Favre made the Plea again strong
at this time, in February 2017, had managed attacker Pléa, whose career stagnated for a long time, one of the most important Pillars of the OGC nice coach Lucien Favre. A cruciate ligament rupture, had thrown him back in his development. And now back pain, after he had twisted into a League game, the knee.
“I was in the hospital and didn’t know what to expect now. The Doctors said they on my knees now and see what exactly I have. If you don’t find anything, could I play in three weeks, otherwise it will be a five-month break,“ said Pléa later. When he awoke from the anesthesia, he learned the diagnosis: meniscus tear. A brake in career development, especially now that it went so well. Crying Pléa called his father Sekou.
at the age of 17 this had come once from Mali to Northern France to study in Lille. He met Alassanes French mother and was hired by the local University, where he works until today. When he had his crying son on the phone, he knew to calm him down: “I told him, it was so bad, that he would recover, it was only a matter of time,” says father Pléa in an interview with Welt AM Sonntag. He proved to be right.
After his injury, Alassane Pléa found in nice quickly to its old strength, also thanks to the support of coach Favre: “He taught me a lot, I’ve improved under him in many areas, technically, and tactically. He advised me to change to Mönchengladbach, my OGC teammate Dante as well,“ said Pléa in his performance in Mönchengladbach.
Also against FC Bayern Plea
Favre not met, now at Borussia Dortmund, is surprised that Pléa in the Bundesliga to work immediately: “He is a good man, a good player. He makes many goals. And he can feel the football,“ said the BVB coach. FC Bayern had to know the 0:3 against Gladbach. Pléa brought the Borussia after ten minutes.
In Interviews he is relaxed, often has a Smile on his lips, acts sometimes shy but also. “I’m not a Star, I just play a bit of football,” he said in a YouTube Interview. “He never spoke much, was not a wild Boy,” recalls his father. The young Pléa stand reluctantly in the spotlight. Maybe it’s because a Boy will not be noticed because of where he grew up, dear.
His home is located three hours from Mönchengladbach, located in Villeneuve d’ascq, a suburb of Lille. In 20 minutes by foot from his parents ‘ home to the stadium of Lille OSC, where just two of the next big talents in the French League to attract the attention of the striker Nicolas Pépé and Jonathan Bamba – both traded as a possible transfer to FC Bayern Munich.
Plea grew up with three future world Champions on
However, this world seems to be in Villeneuve significantly further away. Pléas old neighborhood mainly consists of social housing, is a stronghold of the drug trade. “Football has kept him out of this world,” says his father.
With 16 leads Pléas him away to the youth center of Lyon. “We have asked him back then whether he was sure, to make the football into a career. He said Yes“ – and grew up in the future, with three world Champions of 2018: Corentin Tolisso (now at FC Bayern), Nabil Fekir (Lyon) and Samuel Umtiti (FC Barcelona) his team-mates.
Although he was successful in the pros of the “OL” is never really and for the breakthrough to nice had to change, looks Pléa today to the time in Lyon. Umtiti has become a good friend during the world Cup in the summer, they were regularly in contact. The national team is part of course objectives to Pléas, but currently the competition is great.
another of his childhood friends still live in humble conditions. Perhaps this is the reason why Pléa followed in the beginning of this year, the model of the Spaniard, Juan Mata and since then, each one percent of his monthly salary to charities to donate. He may it to help people, even if it sometimes fate takes quite. In nice, he participated several times at Christmas dinner with the homeless part. Pléa sees himself as a role model: “The more people I get involved, the more it will do others in the society,” he said in announcing the action.
His parents he visited regularly, he was most recently during the international break game in Villeneuve and to play the Gladbach home, his father, and in the Borussia-Park, so even today, against Mainz: “We wish him that he continues to make a great career and stay healthy”.
