Premier League player faced 20km walks and hid from his dad for football dream

Boubacar Traore has played 41 times for Wolverhampton Wanderers but sustained two serious injuries during his first and most recent seasons at the Premier League club

Wolverhampton Wanderers player Boubacar Traore has revealed he often walked over 12 miles to train at an academy while also having to hide from his father at home. Traore, 24, is currently on loan at Metz, where Wolves signed the midfielder from two years ago.

His return to the Ligue 1 club during the summer transfer window came six years after they signed the French citizen from Mali’s AS Bamako. Traore barely played for Wolves last season after having knee surgery to repair a meniscus injury sustained during a League Cup second-round tie against Burnley in late August.

The Mail international made just two substitute appearances after returning to fitness, being an unused member of the matchday squad another half a dozen times. He is now back where it all began for him in Europe, and Metz have interviewed the player about the beginning of his football journey.

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Asked about his childhood in Mali, Traore replied (quotes taken from an automatically generated audio track on YouTube ): “What I can say is that I come from a family that wasn’t very wealthy, so I suffered.

“I often walked to get to the academy, I can say it was 20km, so I walked all the time until daybreak. They called me up for the national team, and then an older brother gave me a motorbike.

“At first, my dad didn’t want me to play football; he was more interested in studying. I would hide to go to the academy to train, often saying that I’d leave and to go to school.

“So, I would hide to go to training, wash myself and come back like someone who hadn’t left the field.”

One day, he actually caught me; he knew that I wasn’t going to school, so they called him up. At that moment, he was angry, and then he understood when I started playing for the national team.”

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