Who is Ayanda Sishuba, the new promise of Belgian football: “If he had had square feet, we would have told him that his father was a footballer”

From Le Havre to Épinal via Nantes, the mother of the young Belgian prodigy has continued to accompany him. Hours on the road to see him sometimes play only a handful of minutes. “Never mind, we never wanted to leave him alone. The length of the return route was especially felt during defeatsshe smiles. There was no sound in the car for seven hours.

So inevitably, even if the new darling of the Lensois supporters remained on the bench at the Francis Le Blé stadium, the pilgrimage to Brittany represented a first reward for the years of sacrifices superimposed on the months of doubts as during this bone tearing that occurred on last year which deprived him of his passion for several months. “Ayanda became the center of family attention from a very young age. His sister, Yalisa, devoted herself to her brother by going to see him every weekend when she is not necessarily football.

From mad precocity to disgust in Lille

From the outside, everything seems like clockwork. Prejudices die hard. Football would not escape nepotism according to some. Being “the son of” would open doors. “That’s why I didn’t want him to play football. If he had had the two square feet, he would have been told that his father was a professional footballer.

Ayanda Sishuba can play for four selections: “The choice of the heart is Belgium but we have already been disappointed”

People will always compare his offspring to his father Asanda, a former Belgian D1 player, yet absent throughout the growth of his children. We do not know if the genes have their share of responsibility but the round ball very quickly had a primordial place in the heart of his offspring. Her mom made up her mind. In baby basketball, the Mouscronnois drove the big orange ball with his feet when he was only four years old. “When his dad played in Saint-Trond, we went to the carnival one day. He was tall as three apples. He didn’t want to go on any rides. Only duck fishing found favor in his eyes as he wanted to win the ball. I knew it was screwed”, jokes Capucine.

There are things that cannot be explained. Some are born with a gift. Nature gave the young man a precocious talent for football to the point of seeing recruiters swarm when “Aya” was only 8 years old. “It scared me. I wondered how they found my number. We even had scout cards in our mailbox.”

At such an age, closeness to Ayanda embodies the main criterion for this mom in this early first choice. Despite successful tests at Club Brugge and Anderlecht, it will be LOSC and Luchin, barely 20 kilometers from the family home. “I was mistakenshe admits with hindsight. I did not take into account his development. I handed it over to Excel after three years when Mouscron was only recovering from its first bankruptcy. The important thing was that he finds pleasure again.

Pleasure he had lost in the North where the Belgian composed with a very tough universe for a kid barely 10 years old to the point of almost disgusting him with his passion. Nothing is meaner than a child with another child. At that age, some are already ready to do anything to outsmart the competition. Struggles to wear the number ten, hidden shoes before training or hidden water bottles in the middle of a heat wave. “At the end, we were humanly no longer on the same wavelength with Lille”, she summarizes soberly.

What could be better than his cocoon in Mouscron to find the boy’s smile? In a structure where he is far too strong, the attacking midfielder regains a taste for football. If he evolves a level below, in elite 2, the training centers of major clubs always make eyes at him. Lens invites him to take a test and wants to enlist him directly. For the mother, the Cornelian choice causes her headaches. “We had just brought him back to Mouscron for his own good and there was the fear of putting him back in a harmful environment without knowing if the train would come back a third time.

In this thorny reasoning, a man will create the difference. Dominique Delattre, the head of the Racing training center. “It is this gentleman who made that our decision fell on Lens. Without him, I’m not sure we would have said yes. His human side reassured me. When he showed us around La Gaillette, I saw that the children were not just a number with him.”

A wonderful grandfather in the absence of the father

Humanity, a primordial and essential criterion in view of his painful past at LOSC but also at this crucial stage which characterizes for the first time the separation from his mother. “Every Monday morning I cried for half an hour. My dad was going to drive it.” Jean-Bernard, a wonderful grandfather, an unbreakable pillar of the life of Lensois, who knew how to embody the father figure when Asanda did not assume his role. Good players are not always great men. “Ayanda has not seen her father since she was 6 years old. He was never present. He didn’t even go back to South Africa. He apparently lives in Belgium but nothing is known. He does not give news.

On Sunday at Bollaert against Rennes, the 18-year-old could make his Ligue 1 debut. would have liked so much to see him show off the lawns of the French championship. “He left four months ago. His last wish was to see him play pro. During the last discussion he had with him, he told Ayanda that he would see him from above.”

With its most loyal supporter in its heart, the promise of Belgian football will never be alone on the pitch. After a journey far from linear, the first day of the rest of his life will begin this Sunday, August 20. The future is bright and the pages of his great white book are just waiting to be blackened with his vision of the game, his strokes of brilliance and his double acceleration. To brighten up the journeys of the many trips to come.