Diomande: From ‘new Messi’ tag to Bernabeu breakthrough in just 72 hours

Yankuba Diomande’s rise from Leganes reserve-team prospect to one of Europe’s most coveted young players began with a three-day whirlwind that took him from a low-key friendly to a debut at the Santiago Bernabeu – and now a valuation in excess of €100m.

Before that decisive spell, the Ivorian was a relative unknown, recently back from injury and playing for the Leganes B team. Today, after a €20m move to RB Leipzig and a stellar first season in the Bundesliga, he is on the verge of a transfer expected to reach between €100m and €120m.

Borja Jimenez, the former Leganes head coach and now in charge of Al Ahli in Qatar, has revealed how those pivotal days unfolded and why Diomande’s talent was obvious from his very first touches.

‘We’ve got the new Messi’

Jimenez recalls the first time he heard of Diomande, long before the player’s breakthrough in Spain.

“I heard about Yankuba for the first time when Jeff Luhnow, the owner of Leganes, showed me a home-made video of him on YouTube,” he told Spanish newspaper Marca. “He was about 16, studying at one of the club’s academies in the United States.

“Jeff said to me: we’ve got the new Messi. And what I saw in that video really was spectacular.”

The first live glimpse came just a week before Leganes’ league visit to Real Madrid on 29 March 2025, in a friendly at the Estadio Butarque against the club’s reserve side.

“We played a friendly at Butarque against the B team,” Jimenez said. “Yankuba had only played a few minutes for them the previous week, and I hadn’t seen him before.

“In his first action he dribbled past his opponent with ease, then he did it again in the next one. After that he played a brilliant through ball with an incredible first touch, then received the ball in the box, set himself and put it into the top corner.”

“After just five or six actions I called the B-team coach and told him: take Yankuba off the pitch, because he’s going to get kicked in the next move. Get him off immediately and have him train with us tomorrow.”

Fast-tracked to the first team

Jimenez insists the decision to withdraw Diomande early was about protection, not hype.

“He only played 45 minutes because he was coming back from injury,” he explained. “He was way ahead of the rest of the players, and that can create tension sometimes in matches. I was expecting a heavy challenge on him, so we preferred to substitute him.”

Once Diomande stepped up to first-team training, Jimenez’s initial conversation with him focused on professionalism rather than tactics.

“I didn’t talk to him about football, but about behaviour in the first team,” he said. “I asked him to keep performing at the same level, but to respect the hierarchy in the dressing room.

“I told him: you have to arrive first, leave last, help your team-mates and understand that you are the new guy. I wanted him to understand the rules of professionalism before anything else.”

According to Jimenez, the message landed immediately.

“I wanted to be a mentor to him in his first steps towards professional football, and he understood everything I told him perfectly.”

At the end of Diomande’s first training session with the senior squad, one of the team’s experienced players approached the coach.

“We were walking towards the dressing room when Dani Raba came up to me and said: this kid is fantastic. I replied: yes, he really is fantastic.”

Bernabeu debut and instant impact

After his impressive start in training, the coaching staff had no hesitation in including Diomande in the squad to face Real Madrid.

“We went to the Bernabeu needing a positive result, and we brought him on around the 80th minute,” Jimenez recalled. “From the beginning we were convinced he was a different kind of player.”

His brief cameo in one of world football’s most intimidating stadiums left a strong impression.

“His first touches were a brilliant change of tempo in the box,” Jimenez said. “Then he was fouled in an incident that led to appeals for a penalty that wasn’t given. From that moment, his career started to take shape naturally.”

What most struck the coach that night was not just Diomande’s technique, but his composure.

“He didn’t show any fear, even though it was his first game at the Santiago Bernabeu, a stadium that unsettles a lot of young players,” Jimenez said.

‘He could have changed our season’

Looking back, Jimenez believes Diomande’s late promotion to the first team deprived Leganes of a player who might have transformed their campaign.

“If he had been with us since January, we might have been fighting for European places instead of battling against relegation,” he said. “But he was only with us for a month and a half.”

“Even so, he was a decisive player. He scored goals and changed the course of many matches. Even against Sevilla, where he missed a clear chance, his impact was very obvious.”

Interest from abroad quickly followed. Jimenez says several foreign clubs made enquiries when Diomande’s market value was still around €20m – the figure RB Leipzig eventually paid to sign him.

“They told me €20m was a lot of money,” he said. “I replied that his value would double or triple within a year or two.”

The reality moved faster than even Jimenez anticipated. In just one season at Leipzig, Diomande’s valuation has soared, with a move now expected in the €100m-€120m range – a rapid ascent that underlines his status as one of the most exciting emerging talents in European football.