Borja Jiménez, the coach who gave him his opportunity at Leganés, has explained how he impressed everyone at first sight in a friendly with the reserve team, earning his La Liga debut against Real Madrid later that same week.
How Yan Diomandé went from an unknown Leganés prospect to a La Liga debut at the Bernabéu
Yan Diomandé’s rise began in circumstances that even those closest to Leganés could hardly have predicted. In the final week of March 2025, the club were preparing for one of the most demanding fixtures of their season, an away match against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu. The focus was naturally on the senior squad, but behind the scenes an 18-year-old Ivory Coast winger was about to transform his position within the club in the space of only a few days. Diomandé had arrived in January to join Leganés’ reserve team, but an injury delayed his progress and initially kept him away from the first-team picture. He was still largely unknown, even to several members of the senior coaching staff, when an internal friendly changed everything.
Borja Jiménez, who was Leganés coach at the time and is now in charge of Al-Ahli in Qatar, witnessed that rapid transformation first-hand. His first knowledge of Diomandé had not come from a scouting report, a competitive match or a recommendation from one of his assistants. Instead, it came through a homemade video shown to him by club owner Jeff Luhnow. Diomandé was only around 16 years old at the time and was playing at one of Leganés’ academies in the United States, but the images were impressive enough to remain in the coach’s memory. Jiménez recalled Luhnow presenting the footage with an extraordinary level of confidence and telling him: “We have the new Messi.”
Such comparisons are usually treated with caution, particularly when they concern a teenager who has not yet played professional football. Jiménez did not immediately assume that Diomandé would become a star, but he admitted that the player’s movements and technical ability in the video made a strong impression. There was something unusual in the way the youngster carried the ball, changed direction and eliminated opponents. Even from an informal recording, it was possible to see qualities that separated him from the average academy player. However, there remained a huge difference between looking talented in a youth environment and proving capable of competing with senior professionals.
Diomandé’s arrival at Leganés was not followed by an immediate breakthrough. He joined the reserve side in January while injured, which meant the club had to be patient before introducing him to competitive football. His first minutes for the B team only came shortly before the senior side’s visit to Real Madrid. By then, Jiménez had heard about his potential but still had not watched him closely in person. That changed during a friendly at Butarque between the first team and the reserve side in the week leading up to the Bernabéu fixture on 29 March.
The coach still remembers the sequence of actions that convinced him Diomandé was ready to train with the senior squad. From his first involvement in the match, the young winger displayed confidence that did not reflect his limited experience. Jiménez recalled him facing Altimira, beating him with a dribble and shifting the ball quickly from one foot to the other. A second similar action followed almost immediately, suggesting that the first had not been an isolated moment. Diomandé then attacked a pass played into space with power and produced an exceptional first touch, maintaining control while moving at speed.
The fourth action was even more decisive. Diomandé collected the ball inside the penalty area, moved it onto his other foot and finished into the top corner. Rather than slowing down after that goal, he continued to dominate his direct opponents in the following exchanges. Jiménez watched a player who had barely been involved with the reserve team repeatedly outperform footballers from the senior squad. It became clear within a matter of minutes that the teenager needed to be tested at a higher level.
The quality of Diomandé’s performance also created a concern for the coaching staff. He was returning from injury, had not yet developed full match fitness and was playing with such freedom that Jiménez feared frustration could lead to a heavy challenge from an opponent. The coach therefore contacted Carlos Martínez Capdevila, who was responsible for the reserve side, and asked him to remove Diomandé from the match. Jiménez’s message was direct: the winger had already shown enough, and there was no reason to expose him to unnecessary physical risk. He was to leave the pitch and report for first-team training the following day.
“He only played 45 minutes because he was coming back from an injury and I thought there could be some risk,” Jiménez later explained. “It was also because he was proving far superior to some of the first-team players, and that can sometimes generate tension. I thought there could be a strong tackle, so we decided to take him off.” It was an unusual decision, but it demonstrated how quickly Diomandé had changed his status. He had started the match as an academy player being assessed by the senior staff and finished it as someone already invited to join the first team.
Jiménez’s next concern was not the player’s technical level. He had already seen enough to understand that Diomandé possessed exceptional natural ability. What mattered now was how the youngster would behave when introduced to an established dressing room. His first senior training session represented a major step, and the coach wanted to ensure that he understood the standards expected of him. Before the session, Jiménez spoke to Diomandé privately, not to discuss tactics or praise his performance in the friendly, but to explain the importance of humility and respect.
The message was that the winger should continue playing with the same courage he had shown against the reserve side, while recognising that he was entering a different environment. Jiménez told him to arrive early, be among the first players on the training pitch, remain until the work was finished and help his teammates whenever possible. He also reminded him that he was the newcomer and that earning respect within the group involved much more than producing impressive dribbles or goals.
“When he came up to train with us, I spoke to him,” the coach recalled. “It was not to say anything about his performance, but to explain how he needed to behave inside a first-team environment. I told him that he had to keep doing exactly what he had done the day before, but that he also needed to show respect to the senior players. He had to arrive first, be the first out to train, leave last, help his teammates and understand who the new player was.”
For Diomandé, it was his first experience of working daily with a professional senior team. Jiménez believed the player required guidance as he moved from academy football into an environment where every action, both on and off the pitch, carried greater importance. The Leganés coach felt responsible for helping him understand the unwritten rules of professional football, from the intensity of training to the relationships within the dressing room. According to Jiménez, the teenager listened carefully and responded exactly as expected.
“It was his first experience in a first team, and I felt that I needed to be a little like a guide for him,” Jiménez said. “I wanted to help him understand the transition to professional football, the rules of respect and the demands of everyday life. He understood it perfectly.” That reaction was important because young players with outstanding technical ability can sometimes struggle when asked to adapt to the discipline of senior football. Diomandé, however, appeared willing to combine his confidence on the ball with humility away from it.
His talent did not take long to attract attention from the players around him. At the end of one training session, Jiménez was walking towards the dressing room when Dani Raba approached him. Raba’s assessment was brief but significant: “This boy is good.” Jiménez simply replied: “Yes, he is good.” The exchange confirmed that Diomandé was not only impressing the coaching staff. Experienced members of the squad had also immediately recognised that the youngster possessed qualities that were difficult to ignore.
The second and third training sessions reinforced the first impression. Diomandé continued to compete with confidence, demonstrating that his performance in the friendly had not been an isolated display. Jiménez and his staff saw enough to include him in the squad for the trip to the Bernabéu, despite the fact that only days earlier he had not been considered part of the first-team plans. It was an extraordinary acceleration, moving from reserve football to a place on the bench against Real Madrid within the same week.
Leganés travelled to Madrid in need of a positive result and with no intention of treating the occasion as a ceremonial visit. The coaching staff believed the match had to be approached with ambition, even though the quality of the opposition made the task extremely difficult. Diomandé began on the bench, but Jiménez had already decided that the youngster could offer something different if the game required a direct and fearless attacking option. He was eventually introduced after the 80th minute, making his La Liga debut at one of the most famous stadiums in world football.
The significance of the occasion did not appear to intimidate him. In one of his first actions, Diomandé received the ball inside the penalty area and produced a sudden change of pace that took him away from Federico Valverde. The move led to an incident involving Raúl Asencio which Leganés believed should have resulted in a penalty, although the referee did not award one. For Jiménez, that moment immediately confirmed that the player was capable of reproducing his fearless style even against elite opposition.
“We went to play against Madrid in a match we needed to win, and we brought him on around the 80th minute,” Jiménez said. “From the first moment, we were convinced that he was different. His first action came inside the area, when he changed pace against Valverde and created the possible penalty involving Asencio that was not given. From that point onwards, Yan’s story began to write itself.”
The speed of his promotion made the story particularly remarkable. Diomandé had not been gradually integrated through months of first-team training or several substitute appearances. He had been almost completely outside the senior picture at the beginning of the week, impressed during an internal friendly, trained with the first team and then made his debut against Real Madrid only three days later. Each step followed the previous one with almost no time for hesitation.
Jiménez’s belief in the winger extended beyond that first appearance. The coach later recalled being told that a valuation of €20 million was considered expensive for Diomandé. His response was that the player could be worth twice or three times that amount within a year. It was a bold prediction, but one based on what he had seen at close range. The coach believed Diomandé possessed a rare combination of acceleration, close control, direct running and confidence, qualities that tend to attract significant interest in the transfer market when supported by consistent performances.
“They told me last summer that €20 million was expensive, and I told them that within a year he would be worth twice or three times as much,” Jiménez explained. The comment reflected not only his opinion of the player’s talent but also the speed at which modern football can transform the value of a young attacker. A teenager capable of beating defenders, creating chances and performing without fear at senior level can move from relative anonymity to international attention in a very short period.
Diomandé’s attitude was as important as his technical ability during that first week. Jiménez had been impressed by the way he accepted instructions and respected the hierarchy of the squad without losing the freedom that made him dangerous. The challenge for any young winger is to maintain the confidence required to take risks while also understanding when to release the ball, how to position himself and what defensive work is expected. His first sessions suggested that he was prepared to learn rather than relying only on natural talent.
The role of Leganés in his development was also crucial. The club provided the pathway that allowed an injured teenager from their reserve structure to reach La Liga without unnecessary delay. Once the coaching staff recognised his level, they did not allow his age or lack of experience to become barriers. Jiménez trusted what he saw and gave the player an opportunity immediately, demonstrating how important decisive coaching can be in the development of young footballers.
For academy prospects, the difference between progress and stagnation can sometimes depend on one coach being prepared to make a bold decision. Diomandé happened to impress during a week when the senior team were preparing for a major match, but Jiménez could easily have decided that the Bernabéu was too demanding an environment for an inexperienced player. Instead, he concluded that the teenager’s ability deserved to be tested and that his direct style could provide Leganés with a useful option late in the game.
The story also illustrates how quickly perceptions can change inside a football club. Before the friendly at Butarque, Diomandé was an academy player recently returning from injury. After 45 minutes, the first-team coach wanted him removed from the pitch to protect him and invited him to train with the senior group. Within days, established professionals were praising his quality, and his name appeared in the squad for a La Liga match at the Bernabéu. By the end of the week, he had already produced a moment that convinced his coach he belonged at that level.
Jiménez’s memories provide a detailed picture of a player who did not require a long introduction. Diomandé announced himself through a succession of actions so impressive that those watching quickly understood they were dealing with an unusual talent. The dribbles, the control at speed and the finish into the top corner attracted immediate attention, but his response to the demands of the first-team environment gave the coaching staff even greater confidence.
From a homemade YouTube video in the United States to a La Liga debut against Real Madrid, Diomandé’s path was anything but conventional. Jeff Luhnow’s description of him as “the new Messi” was inevitably exaggerated, but it captured the excitement created by the teenager’s ability from an early age. Jiménez treated the comparison cautiously, yet his reaction after finally seeing the winger in person showed that the initial enthusiasm had not been without reason.
The match at the Bernabéu did not complete Diomandé’s development, but it provided the first major public chapter in his career. It was the moment when an unknown reserve player became a senior footballer and began to attract attention beyond Leganés. His story did not emerge from a carefully planned promotion or a long public campaign around an academy star. It began suddenly, through an internal friendly, a telephone call to the reserve coach and a decision to reward talent immediately.
For Borja Jiménez, the memory remains particularly clear because he saw the transformation take place from the beginning. He watched Diomandé dominate experienced players, protected him from unnecessary risk, explained the standards of senior football and then trusted him in one of the most difficult matches on the calendar. The coach’s conclusion was simple from the opening sessions: Diomandé was different. From that week in March 2025, the player’s progress no longer required an introduction. As Jiménez observed, the rest of Yan Diomandé’s story began to write itself.