‘Follow your star.’

Malo Gusto was late to organised football. He was already ten years old when he trained properly for the first time. It was then that his grandmother passed on some advice he keeps close to him to this day. ‘Suis ton étoile.’ Follow your star. Go your own way.

Malo has done just that. His father actually encouraged him to try his hand at rugby as a young boy, but it was quickly apparent football was his calling. He played with his friends on the streets of his local neighbourhood in Villefontaine, a town half-an-hour outside Lyon.

‘It’s very mixed, very multicultural,’ Malo tells us.

‘It was a good place to grow up. I could learn from different cultures and countries. The atmosphere was very nice. Now I am more understanding of people’s backgrounds, and I am used to speaking to people from all places. It was a good experience.

‘I was an only child so I grew up just with my parents. My dad was born in Germany but he’s from Martinique, in the Caribbean. My mum is French. My dad still works in a train company in France and my mum worked for an association for old people and people with disabilities. She has retired now and just takes care of everything for us.

‘We are very close. They helped me a lot to become a good person, and after to become a good footballer. My dad always took care of my football. He brought me to training, watched my games, picked me up.’

Malo was educated first at Jules Ferry School, around the corner from his house, and then at the secondary schools of Rene Cassin and Sonia Delauney.

He played football for his local team, AS Villefontaine, between the ages of 10 and 12. It was there Lyon first noticed his quality. They encouraged him to join Bourgoin-Jallieu, a more professional outfit 20 minutes down the road that their scouts kept closer tabs on. Six months was it all it took for Lyon to add Malo to their books.

‘I was 13 when I joined the Lyon academy,’ recalls the right-back.

‘I left my parents’ house and moved on site. It was easy to get to training! I had a good relationship with the other guys. I missed my parents, for sure, but it was not like I was crying every day and I wanted to go home.

‘I was there, I had worked to be there, I wanted to be there, and I had just had to enjoy it, do my best and see what happened after.’

Malo would travel back to Villefontaine on the day off he was afforded each week. Otherwise, he was learning quickly, on and off the pitch. He had a regime he had to stick to. He paid attention to his recovery, hitherto a facet of the game unknown to him. He understood how small details can make a big difference.

‘The sacrifices were worth it,’ Malo reflects.

‘To play for Chelsea, to play professional football, you have to make sacrifices when you are young. You don’t always understand it, but when you grow up, you know it’s very important.

‘Sometimes you can’t see your family, sometimes you have to work more, you have to learn more. I never asked myself if I was good enough to play professionally. It wasn’t like, ‘now it’s serious’. Honestly, no. I never had an idea what I would do in life, but I knew my passion was football. I just played football, and then waited to see what happened after.’

Now 21, Malo does not have to travel back too far to remember those times. He looks back at them now with a sense of nostalgia. The innocence of youth. Playing football purely for the joy it brings you.

A serious back injury at 14 kept Malo out for four or five months, but having never been sidelined before he did not fear any long-term consequences. ‘The future was not something I worried about,’ he says.

In December 2020, now 17, Malo was rewarded for some fine performances in Lyon’s academy teams when he was given his maiden professional contract.

‘It was just a feeling of pride, when I saw how proud and happy my parents were,’ he smiles. ‘That was the best feeling.’

His grandmother would have been proud, too. Malo had followed his star.