Maeva Gouge saw the rumours on social media. Everyone was saying her younger brother Bryan Mbeumo was moving from Brentford to Manchester United but he had not told her anything.
When she forwarded the messages to him, Mbeumo replied: “Mort de rire”, the French equivalent of “laugh out loud”.
Then he asked: “Are you alone?” Maeva, a nurse, was at work and stepped out for a moment to take a phone call.
“Don’t say anything,” she remembers her brother saying. “They are not rumours. United are interested, I’m interested too.”
Mbeumo was staying at his mother’s house, around two hours south of Paris, over the summer. When Maeva, two years older than Mbeumo, returned home, the pair sneaked into a bedroom. “Why Manchester?” she asked. “Their league position isn’t very good!”
Maeva, sitting on her sofa last week in a remote village in France, laughs at the memory. She didn’t know much about United, she only watched Brentford.
Mbeumo, his sister Maeva Gouge and mother Angelique Gouge in Los Angeles (Photo courtesy of Maeva Gouge)
Mbeumo told her about United’s history. “It’s a club that can bounce back,” he said. “Their game plan is interesting, I’m committed. I’m a man of my word, for now I’m going there.”
But Brentford rejected two United bids. “You’re not going to sign,” Maeva said to Mbeumo. “It’s going to happen,” came the reply. “He really wanted it, in his mind, it was Manchester,” says Maeva.
Mbeumo found it difficult to tell his mother, Angelique Gouge. He didn’t know how she would react. Just before she went to bed one night, he said: “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?” she said. “You’re scaring me…”
“I’m going to Manchester,” said Mbeumo.
The 26-year-old wanted his family to be with him at United’s Carrington training ground when the £65million ($87m) transfer, plus £6million in add-ons, was made official.
The trip to Manchester was slightly smoother than when Mbeumo made a career-defining move from French side Troyes to Championship side Brentford in 2019. In Troyes, the siblings had lived as neighbours — Maeva was studying and Mbeumo had signed his first professional contract with the club the year before — but now he was leaving for another country altogether.
A magazine clipping charts Mbeumo’s journey from Troyes to Brentford (Photo courtesy of his coach Benjamin Bureau.)
When Mbeumo wrote a goodbye message to the Troyes fans, Maeva says she started to cry.
“I didn’t have my brother any more,” she adds, tears filling her eyes. “It was hard but he was happy, that’s life. For mum, it was even worse.”
Mbeumo’s agents had booked their flights to London but the Gouges had never been on an aeroplane before. “We didn’t know how to do it!” she says. Maeva didn’t have her passport with her, they didn’t know where to park at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and they almost missed their flight. “We were lost,” she says.
But they made it, standing by Mbeumo’s side, as they always have done.
The Athletic visited Mbeumo’s hometown of Avallon, with a population of just over 6,000, in what felt like the middle of nowhere, gigantic fields stretching for miles across the Burgundy region. We spoke to his family, friends, former team-mates, teachers and coaches to find out what he is really like.
An hour before United kick off against Sunderland, Maeva is wrapping a babygrow with the name Mbeumo on the back as a present for a friend. The doorbell rings and her father-in-law Jean and brother-in-law Adrien, pastries in hand, join her and her partner Kevin to sit down and watch the game.
“It’s true it’s another world,” she says of Manchester United. “You can feel the pressure is different, the expectations are a little higher. You can’t afford to make mistakes. You have to give it your all.”
The pressure is never off Ruben Amorim’s team; particularly after a defeat by Mbeumo’s former side, Brentford, the previous week.
After only eight minutes, Mason Mount’s neat finish settles any nerves. “It was Bryan’s cross!” says Maeva, who was at Old Trafford with her mother to see Mbeumo’s first United goal against Burnley. She could not believe the fans’ roar inside the stadium.
Watching United with Maeva Gourge, and Jean, Adrien and Kevin Guerin (Charlotte Harpur for The Athletic)
The TV cameras capture the Mancunian drizzle. “Typically English,” the family laugh but Mbeumo likes the rain. In the 22nd minute, he cuts in from the right and shoots from distance but it is palmed away. “Nice hit!” they say before encouraging him, “Allez, Bryan!”
“There’s always a bit of stress, it depends on the game,” says Maeva, who seems very relaxed — unlike her mother, whom she said could not watch United’s penalty-shootout defeat in the Carabao Cup against Grimsby Town. “She is crazy in front of the TV,” says Maeva.
Benjamin Sesko’s goal after the half-hour mark, putting United 2-0 up, allows Maeva to sink back into the sofa. Just like any other fan, throughout the game we chat about the 2-1 win against Chelsea, a first start for goalkeeper Senne Lammens, Andre Onana’s departure, the prospect of signing Emi Martinez and why United did not recruit any midfielders.
Mbeumo puts in a long ball to Sesko but it is overhit. Minutes later, Mbeumo wants the ball squared to him but Diogo Dalot takes a shot, he then goes down and everyone agrees he was looking for the foul.
Half-time is spent chatting about Mbeumo’s love for Manga comics, how he learned to play the piano by watching YouTube videos, his routine of playing chess on his phone before a game and how well-groomed his beard is. “Don’t touch it! It’s sacred!” says Maeva.
In the second half, they say “Allez Mbeumo,”as he picks up the ball but his shot is way off target. “Ah no… too bad,” they laugh. Mbeumo misplaces a pass as United attack and his family groan before dissecting the move.
Mbeumo is demanding and critical of himself but the 2-0 win was the most important takeaway.
“I’m happy with the win,” says Maeva, who talks to her brother almost every day, and checks in after a game. “But I’m not sure he’s 100 per cent satisfied with his performance. “Anyway, I’ll ask him!”
From the kitchen window of their block of flats in La Morlande, Avallon, Mbeumo’s mother could see Maeva and Mbeumo play at Parc Bleu, which houses a cage-like basketball and football pitch. Mbeumo’s parents separated when he was young and the children used to go to their father Jean’s every other weekend.
“Bryan was a pain in the backside!” smiles Maeva. “He was just messing around, all the time. My mother couldn’t take it anymore.”
The young Mbeumo had plenty of energy (Photo courtesy of Yvann Devoucoux)
The only punishment that worked was not letting him play football. But then he would kick a teddy or pieces of paper. “He would have played with bread rolls, anything he could find,” says Maeva. “I always protected him,” she adds.
At the age of 11, Mbeumo joined his sister at Jeanne d’Arc private school — fees are around 80 euros ($93) per term — in Avallon.
“Even though their mother found herself alone, she had a number of principles about education,” former sports teacher Patrick Bocquel tells The Athletic from Jeanne d’Arc’s headteacher’s office.
“Sitting on a chair in class wasn’t his thing,” adds Mbeumo’s science teacher Catherine Fevre, smiling. “I remember him in the lab, we liked him, but at the slightest opportunity, he would talk or play around.”
Bocquel, always quick to defend him, instead describes Mbeumo as “sociable”. He adds that, during his 40-year career, he had never seen a pupil like Mbeumo. “He was like a UFO,” he says.
Mbeumo (right) was a fine cross-country runner (Photo courtesy of his former sports teacher Patrick Bocquel)
Despite his height, physically, Mbeumo had it all: endurance, speed and coordination. He wiped the floor in school cross-country races, beating his peers and those a year older than him.
“It was incredible!” Boquel’s enthusiasm pours out. “This little guy, able to find his place.”
In the regional competition, Mbeumo was beaten in a sprint finish but Boquel recalls the 11-year-old running intelligently, showing a level of strategy way beyond his years. Despite never playing badminton, basketball or doing the triple jump before, Mbeumo learned quickly and soon excelled.
“He could have done any sport,” says former team-mate Baptiste Pungier, who played with Mbeumo from the age of five to 14 at Avallon. “It was in his DNA.”
Indeed, Mbeumo’s father, who watched his matches at Avallon, competed at the world weightlifting championships.
Mbeumo and his father, a weightlifter (Photo courtesy of Maeva Gouge)
“But it was only football for Bryan,” says neighbour, school friend and former Avallon team-mate Lilian Creton. If he was not playing football, Mbeumo would most often stay at home, playing video games such as FIFA or Dofus with Creton, calling each other on Skype to strategise. There was no sign of chess, piano, painting or reading, or the different forms of escapism which he picked up later on in life.
On some Wednesday afternoons, when school finished early, Creton and Mbeumo would eat a kebab and play football before training started at 5pm. Avallon’s football ground was just a 10-minute walk from Mbeumo’s flat and he would either go by foot with his friends or grab a lift.
“That little kid was always bursting with energy, running around everywhere, fooling around all the time, making everyone laugh, getting into mischief,” says Yvann Devoucoux, another of Mbeumo’s friends and an Avallon team-mate.
Mbeumo, nicknamed Brice, was not shy at football but talkative and funny.
“After every training session, my mum would drop him off at home because he didn’t want to walk,” says Pungier. “He would get straight into the car. My mum listened to the radio station RFM, ‘adult music’, the classic French hits. Bryan would change it to Skyrock, R&B and rap blaring out. He was always full of life.”
On the pitch, Mbeumo was relentless. His team-mates remember his pure left foot, dribbling and speed.
“A free spirit,” says Creton. “We’d leave him in the middle of the pitch, give him the ball, and off he went.” He was versatile, playing everywhere, always asking for the ball but wanting to play as a team. His trademark move was not to cross but, just as he does today, to cut inside and shoot with his left foot.
His heading was not the best but that was understandable given his small stature — “and he didn’t have a right foot,” according to Devoucoux and Grenier.
Farid Azarkan, who coached Mbeumo from the age of seven to 14, was strict. At half-time in the changing rooms, when he spoke, you listened. If not, you risked getting a piece of chalk thrown at you.
Mbeumo’s former Avallon team-mates, Lilian Creton (left) and Baptiste Pungier (Charlotte Harpur for The Athletic)
“We didn’t mess around with him,” says Creton. “It was almost the army.”
Mbeumo was his team’s standout player. His dream was to become a professional, say his peers, but he was not arrogant nor boastful. Azarkan, however, was much harder on him. “Farid shouted a lot at Bryan,” says Devoucoux. “He got distracted.”
Mbeumo, though, was a bad loser, not often angry with the team but himself. If he missed a shot, pass or even a tackle, he would sulk. “Oh, he could be very grumpy!” says Pungier.
In the semi-finals of Avallon’s annual May 1 tournament, Mbeumo, aged around 12 or 13, missed a couple of big chances and his team failed to make it to the final. Mbeumo blamed himself for the defeat.
The opposition coach came over to see him, telling him he was the best player, but Mbeumo was inconsolable, crying on the pitch.
Before one match, Mbeumo, in his early teens, stood in the middle of the huddle in the Avallon changing room and told his team-mates he was joining L’Estac, Esperance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne, also known as Troyes.
“I will remember that day for the rest of my life,” says Pungier.
“We were a family, all together, every weekend, all week long,” adds Devoucoux.
Troyes’ recruitment team had spotted Mbeumo and invited him for a trial. The boys lived on-site, ate three meals a day, attended classes and trained. Sometimes Maeva would accompany her mother on the 70-mile, nearly two-hour drive from Avallon to Troyes to watch his matches at the weekend.
“It was strange because my brother was around every day, and then overnight, he was gone,” says Maeva. “I missed him. Even if he went crazy playing on his console, shouting all the time, stamping his feet, you’re still there with him. But when I came home, there was nothing. Mum missed him, she cried all the time.”
Benjamin Bureau, Mbeumo’s Troyes coach until he was 17, recalls a player who was not very tall but fast, lively and striking.
“He was always focused on the game,” says Bureau. “Sometimes when the ball is far away, young players tend to switch off but he would anticipate.”
Bureau found the youngster to be respectful, polite and well-mannered but, unlike at Avallon, quite shy and hesitant to speak in front of the group. He needed a little time to settle in and encouragement to open up. He didn’t grasp the new tactical set-up straight away but soon learned.
What stood out most, however, was Mbeumo’s attitude. The teenager still sulked but Bureau saw he held himself to high standards.
“At the start, he had a tendency to get angry and not manage his emotions properly,” says Bureau. “It could sometimes throw him off his game, he would easily give up on himself.”
Devoucoux recalls how Mbeumo frequently called his mother in tears, wanting to return to Avallon. But those closest to him told him to keep going. “He didn’t crack mentally,” says Devoucoux. “He had that strength to stay.”
When Mbeumo returned to Avallon for the holidays, Maeva noticed a change in her brother mentally and physically. Little by little, Bureau and Mbeumo built his confidence.
“That’s what brought him to the top,” says Bureau. “I’m not at all surprised by everything he’s done. He wanted to succeed in football but he put everything into it. From a little boy emerged a great man and a great professional.”
A turning point in Mbeumo’s career was the 2018 Gambardella youth cup final. Mbeumo scored two goals at the Stade de France — just as Kylian Mbappe had done two years earlier for AS Monaco.
Mbeumo at the Stade de France in 2018 (Photo courtesy of his family)
Everyone told Maeva it was an incredible achievement but she and her mum were used to seeing him score.
“He knew where he was going, what was at stake,” she says. “But mum and I didn’t really realise. We don’t know anything about that world.”
“What if football doesn’t work out?” they asked him.
“It will,” he replied.
That summer, at the age of 18, Mbeumo signed his first professional contract with Troyes, a three-year deal, and was integrated into the first team. A year later, he took the leap to join Brentford on a five-year deal for £5.8 million ($7.8m) breaking the club record fee.
Up until 2020, Mbeumo was selected for the France national youth teams too but after missing out for two years — “He was competing at the time with Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Kingsley Coman,” says Bureau — he was approached by Cameroon, the country of his father. Mbeumo met one of his idols, Samuel Eto’o, before switching allegiance in 2022 and representing Cameroon at the World Cup in Qatar.
“We’re all living the dream of every young footballer through him,” says Grenier who, alongside Pungier and Creton, plays for Avallon’s senior team. Grenier, Pungier and Devoucoux look after children as coaches and after-school leaders in Avallon while Creton works as a supermarket delivery driver. “It doesn’t often happen, especially in a small town like Avallon. We’re very proud of him. He didn’t give up.”
Whenever Mbeumo returns to Avallon, he visits his school and childhood club, spending time answering children’s questions and signing autographs. He surprised his mother by buying her a house. Despite his busy schedule, he stays in regular contact with Bocquel and Bureau, visiting the latter when he had his first child and inviting him to a Boxing Day meal with Mbeumo’s family at Brentford last year, their Christmas tradition.
“When you see him walking down the street, he has a presence that makes you think he’s proud,” says Maeva. “But when you talk to Bryan, you realise he is a calm person who is not at all proud or self-centred.
“Money does not go to his head. He has not changed, he has not forgotten where he comes from, his family, his first steps. He stays humble.”
