Breel Embolo has no need for a note from his parents. His headmaster already knows that the 17-year-old will be absent from school for a couple of days this week because of an important appointment at Anfield.
The striker has to help Basel into the Champions League knockout stages at the expense of Liverpool.
Born on Valentine’s Day 1997, Embolo has become the new darling of Basel fans and is blessed with enough ability to break Liverpool’s hearts. At a time when Brendan Rodgers’ side are struggling to score, it almost seems like a taunt for them to have to host a teenager for whom finding the net seems so natural.
Of course it is foolish to build up a youngster too much. There is plenty of evidence that exceptional starts do not always lead to outstanding careers.
Embolo may have become the sixth youngest scorer in Champions League history when he registered in the 4-0 win over Ludogorets last month, but the player at the top of that chart is Peter Qfori-Quaye, who was tipped for stardom after he scored for Olympiakos against Rosenborg in 1997 and whom most people would not recognise now, even after looking him up on Wikipedia.
Nevertheless, to see Embolo play is to understand why Basel fans already have such affection for him. Born in Cameroon, Embolo moved to Switzerland when he was six and has been on Basel’s books for the past four years, starring for the youth teams and earning youth-level caps for Switzerland.
He made his senior debut as a substitute in a Europa League match with Red Bull Salzburg just under eight months ago and scored his first senior goal in his next game, a 5-0 thrashing of Aarau. He has continued to prosper since then, with a change of manager not interrupting his progress.
The current manager, Paulo Sousa, has good reason to think as highly of Embolo as his predecessor, Murat Yakin, did.
It is not just Embolo’s goals that endear him to managers, team-mates and fans. It is his all-round style: he plays with a vivacity, power and cleverness that uplift those around him and enable him to thrive in a variety of positions, often starting wide on the right, as he did in Basel’s home win over Liverpool in October, but also being mature enough to lead the line well in the 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid, no less.
His dribbling can be a delight but it is his goals that really excite – he is averaging nearly one in every two games, but the variety, more than the volume, attest to a player with a keen scoring instinct. Advertisement
He showed deft chest control and impressive strength before finishing neatly against Ludogorets and four days later he scored twice against Vaduz, the first a backheel flick and the second the work of a courageous opportunist, exploiting hesitation between the defender and goalkeeper to hurl himself at the ball and head it into the net.
He also does a mean Romário-esque dink, while against Aarau on the opening day of the season he scored an emphatic top-corner finish from 16 yards – and that came after an embarrassing miss in which he rounded the goalkeeper and then tried to walk the ball into the empty net only to be dispossessed a few yards out. A valuable lesson for the schoolboy.
Basel give Embolo regular rests, including last weekend, when he started on the bench at Lucerne. He was sent on for the 15 minutes and scored, underlining why they were so happy that he signed a new contract three weeks ago. That complicates matters for the many richer clubs who admire him, Bayern Munich among them reportedly.
While he is on Merseyside Everton are sure to run the rule over him again – word is that Samuel Eto’o has been speaking very highly of Embolo while also lobbying for the player to pledge his future to Cameroon rather than Switzerland. Basel are accustomed to replacing players lured to wealthier teams – their current top-scorer, Shkelzen Gashi, was bought with some of the money from Mohamed Salah’s transfer to Chelsea.
Embolo signed his deal on the same day as Marco Streller extended his, Basel endeavouring to secure simultaneously the future of two generations of crowd favourite.
Streller, 33, scored the winner against Liverpool in October and has won eight league titles with Basel. Embolo may not be at the club long enough to emulate that, but it would be no surprise if he replicated the former achievement.
