Enzo Maresca and Abdul Fatawu might not have much in common, but they both understand one thing: what it is like moving abroad as a teenager to forge a career in football.
For Leicester City manager Maresca, born and raised in the Campania region in southern Italy, that came when he was 18 and joined West Bromwich Albion in England.
For Leicester’s new winger Fatawu, born and raised in Tamale, a city in northern Ghana, it came at the same age, but for him, it was leaving his west African homeland for leading Portuguese club Sporting Lisbon.
“You have to think for yourself and find solutions on your own because you don’t have people around you,” says Maresca. “You are alone. It is more difficult. You need people around you who take care of you. Sometimes, when you are so young, they are not there.
“I was 18. (Team-mate and future Brighton and Chelsea manager) Graham Potter helped me a lot. I joke he became like my personal driver because I didn’t have a licence and we lived close. He would pick me up every morning and take me to training.”
However, when Maresca joined West Brom in the second-tier Championship in the late 1990s, he did not shoulder the same weight of expectation that Fatawu has shouldered over the past few years.
George Addo is a Ghanaian journalist who has followed Fatawu’s rise.
“He played in the under-13s in a tournament and was the star man, and for his school in Tamale,” Addo tells The Athletic.
“His coaches were telling me they had found a good player and I had to go see him. He had started at a club called Zaytuna Babies. His coach used to tell me he had a player with a wicked left foot, so strong and could dribble a lot. I started to follow him after that and there was certainly a lot of excitement around him.”
Ibrahim Dauda, head coach of Zaytuna Babies, discovered Fatawu and it was there he gained a reputation as an emerging talent. Fatawu’s father, Idrissu Issahaku, would receive offers of free education for his son from schools wanting him to feature in their school team.
He then joined Tamale Utrecht Academy, who had links to Dutch top-flight club FC Utrecht, and the first time he ever travelled by plane was when he went to the Netherlands to train in their academy at age 13.
When he was 15, he was selected for Ghana’s under-17 squad and joined Steadfast FC in his country’s second division, where he was taken under the wing of owner and local politician Haruna Iddrisu.
In 2021, he was drafted into the under-20 squad for the age group’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Mauritania, which is when people in Ghana really became excited about their budding star and also when European clubs started to take notice.
“That was the moment he was brought into the spotlight,” says Addo, who made a documentary about Fatawu. “The coach of the under-17s, Abdul Karim Zito, took charge of the under-20s and drafted in this young, left-footed boy playing on the right who could take defenders on, cut inside and shoot.
“He scored some amazing goals from long range – extremely long range. He took the tournament by storm as Ghana won. He made a big impression and was voted the player of the tournament. That really set him on his way. It was his breakthrough.”
Liverpool, Bayer Leverkusen and Sporting were said to be circling for Fatawu, but he was still too young and couldn’t sign for any of them until he turned 18. Instead, having been included in The Guardian’s ‘Next Generation 2021’ list and described as “arguably the best African prospect of his generation”, he joined Dreams FC on loan in the Ghana Premier League.
His first call-up to the Ghana senior squad was in March 2021, for an AFCON qualifier against South Africa, but it was six months before made his debut, in a World Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe.
There was now that weight of expectation on him.
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In 2022, he agreed to join Sporting on a five-year contract, with a reported release clause of €60million (£52m; $63m). Initially, he started with the under-23s and the B team before stepping up to the first team last season.
Fatawu had experienced a meteoric rise in Ghana, but in Portugal, the pace of his progress slowed as the reality of the huge step up in standard hit home. “A lot of people who loved the fact there was this young sensation felt he was ready to go to any club in the world and prove what he could do,” Addo says.
“But there were some who warned that the standard in the Ghana Premier League was not at the top level in terms of the technical side of the game, the skill sets and tactics. Many at the top of the game in Ghana said it was a huge jump.
“But it was an opportunity for him to go and develop into a player at a top club where there were a lot of technical players. They also felt his call-up to the Black Stars (national team) was a bit early, but it was part of his long-term plan to go to Europe and learn. They felt it would take some time.”
Fatawu made 12 appearances for Sporting. That included one start in the Primeira Liga and two Champions League appearances. He also got a hat-trick against Ajax in the UEFA Youth League.
“He had a few opportunities in Lisbon but found it tough and there were some who thought perhaps he wasn’t as good as they thought,” Addo says. “He had a few indifferent performances for the Black Stars as well at the time, but he wasn’t getting a lot of time on the pitch.
“He was part of the Ghana side that went to AFCON in Cameroon (in 2022) and couldn’t win a game (they finished bottom of their group). There were a few flashes, though. It went from perhaps 80 per cent in Ghana who thought he would conquer the world to now perhaps 90 per cent who thought he was not good enough for the Black Stars.
“It got to the point where he went back to the under-23s, trying to qualify for the Olympics (in Paris 2024). The feeling was that he wasn’t quite there. There is hope that perhaps at the time what he was being asked to do at Sporting was a little bit too far for him, but he was still such a young boy.”
Come the World Cup at the end of last year, he made Ghana’s squad but played just a few minutes off the bench in a single appearance as they failed to advance from the group stage.
After that one season with Sporting, Leicester signed him on loan in August. He has featured six times and started the last two league games, providing an assist for Wout Faes’ opener in the 4-1 win at Blackburn Rovers on Sunday as well as playing a key role in the build-up to Jamie Vardy’s goal 25 minutes later.
With Kasey McAteer now facing a few weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury, Fatawu will get more opportunities to continue his development under Maresca.
“I wouldn’t say he has come to Leicester to kickstart his career again,” Addo says. “I spoke to him a few times (at Sporting) and he would ask me, ‘George, why are you worried? You have to take it easy, stay cool. I know things aren’t going as well as I would have liked, but there is no problem. I am not worried’.
“He isn’t having to restart everything at Leicester. He is just concerned about doing his best. This is an opportunity to show the world he still has this potential.
“He is coming to Leicester to show he can be the player everyone thought he could be when he emerged in Tamale. It is going to take a long time and he isn’t worried.
“This is a huge opportunity to reassure those who thought he could go all the way that he still can.”
Source: The Athletic