Rayan Cherki was just a boy when Lyon's former Academy director Jean-Francois Fulliez asked him for his goals. The answer? To win the Champions League and the Ballon d'Or. Fulliez laughs at the memory. “It showed his ambition,” he says Sky Sports.
Now 21, and the target is for a Premier League movement by Manchester City, Cherki will undoubtedly believe that he is taking the next step to achieve his goals. There are still enough points to prove. But he joins himself as one of the most exciting players in Europe.
He underlined his extraordinary potential with a sizzling debut for France in their Wild 5-4 Nations League defeat against Spain in Stuttgart on Thursday. His side 5-1 within a few minutes after he came after, Cherki almost led a comeback for the centuries.
A stunning goal and an assist to match in his first performance for his country will do nothing to suppress the hype about a player whose great ambitions seem a little less elevated every day. City would like the deal to be done, because the secret is good and really out.
Cherki had a season with Lyon. The most creative player in French football, he was at the same charts in the Europa League last season and tormented Manchester United in Old Trafford with his outrageous deception and touch.
In a sport where even the best are taught to function as part of the whole, Cherki retains that individual series, that desire to have fun on the football field. He is a natural showman. Art because of art. Let's hope Pep Guardiola also sees that as a super power.
“When he was very young, it was incredible,” Vulliez recalls. “Every day, every training session, he would dribble and want to score past opponents.” For Cherki it was not so much against one. “More like one against two! It was just in his DNA.”
Thierry Henry, who coached Cherki for the French team under 21, once said that he had never seen a player with both feet with both feet. It is not that he is quickly lightning, more that he hardly extends when he moves the ball under his enchantment.
“We still don't know if his best foot is his right or left.” In reality, he tends to prefer the left, but his shot with his right foot is explosive. “It was the same in seven, eight, nine.” In other words, it wasn't something he had to work on. “He could always play with both.”
This was an early mature talent. In the first team of Lyon at the age of 16, he was seven months from his 17th birthday when he scored two and assisted two more in a victory over Nantes. Even Kylian Mbappe had to wait longer than Cherki to make such an impact.
“He was promoted early because he was physically mature. It was also difficult for us to find a good opposition to help him improve his level. He played under 17 football out of 14. It was too easy for him. We had to find the right level for him to improve.”
He quickly adjusted to one level. “He's not shy,” laughs Vulliez. “In the dressing room he found it easy to talk to players like Alexandre Lacazette, even as a young teenager. He has good communication skills, very confidence in himself and very solid mentally.”
The problem was that Cherki brought fast Cherki challenges on the field in this way. “Psychologically he was not ready to play,” Vulliez admits. “Everything happened so quickly and at the age of 16 he didn't know what professional football was. He was a child.”
This is part of what makes Cherki's story so interesting – there is an arc about it. It would be easy for Premier League audience to assume that this is only the next logical step for a 21-year-old France International after a breakthrough year and there is some truth in it.
But progress has not been linear and Cherki has overcome criticism of his physique and mentality. There have been dips, time outside the team and all the frustrations that entails. “Over the years he has shown resilience because it was not easy for him.”
He explains: “There were many people who tried to break him, you know. And because he was so young, the fans did not understand when he lost the ball many times during games. It was all just a step on the journey for him to learn and improve.”
Fulliez has seen that entire journey and even the leadership of the Senior Side for one Lyon game. Cherki played the full 90 minutes that day. “He was always respectful, but he could be emotional. He didn't understand when he had to go to the couch,” he says.
“That was a bit difficult. But it was because he wanted to win every time, he wanted to play every time, he wanted to score every time. He was an attacking player. But it was difficult for him to make the defensive effort. He thought everyone had to run for him.”
According to that close to Cherki, this is the big change in his game. At first glance it is his attacking output that was transformed last season. In addition to those amazing creative figures, his target output is more than double the total in every earlier campaign.
But it was his understanding from the other side of the game, finding a way to contribute without the ball, which was always questioned. Cherki's urgent figures are still not high, but there is a feeling that he has learned how to do enough to help the team.
“That is the biggest step he has made. Now he is able to make the defensive run as the attacking run. In the past he would just think that he was the best talent of the team, they would just give him the ball, he would score and they would win.
“Now he is able to understand that he should play for the team, not only himself, and in this way he can help the team to win. That was always the last step, not the technical side or the intelligence sake, his understanding of the game, but the defending side of it.”
It is crucial that this has not affected its attacking output, but has unleashed it. It has earned him more minutes, more opportunities to impress, although it is interesting that United did not perform their late comeback until April after Cherki was replaced.
In terms of his attacking game it has grown up. “He was always very competent,” says Vulliez. “But he was very focused on the duels, one against one. The most important thing for him was to find the balance of when he had to dribble and when he had to pass.” That death is now a big asset.
Cherki sees things that others don't do. Moreover, he has so many different ways to perform that pass, whether it is films of tricks, dummies or nutmatics, La Croqueta or the Marseille turn, everything is in the arsenal to buy him the space he needs.
“It is not just his technical skill, he is very smart. He is able to make a blind pass, read the space, find the assist, to cause an imbalance for the opponent's team. He has many capacities. And this is the year in which he was able to do it consistently.”
Elf helps. Twenty -two big opportunities created. Thirteen through balls completed. Forty -eight successful dribbles. And that is only in Ligue 1. Special songs. “Special dribbles, special steps, special goals,” Vulliez adds. “He has taken a big step.”
Because of all this, that sense of pleasure is part of its attraction. After all, this is a player who once regretted the lack of entertainers in the game, almost styling himself like a one -man antidote. “He even invented some technical movements himself,” says Vulliez.
But there is now a seriousness of Cherki, a clarity about what is needed to promote his career. He uses personal coaches to help the best of himself – physically, mentally and tactically. He has shown his quality in Lyon. He looks ready to do it for the city.
“It's a very good challenge for him. Yes, it's a big step to the Premier League, but I think he can do it because there is still the room to improve. The nervous system must be stimulated and can continue to improve until the age of 24 or 25.”
One of the major problems for the former Premier League champions this last season was their predictability in attack. Cherki is different. He can unlock defenses. “When Pep Guardiola takes a player, he knows in advance how he can use them,” Vulliez argues.
Cherki can play wide, especially from the right, but his long-term preference must be familiar with that number 10 role. “He can play in different positions and now I think he can understand what the coach wants and how he can adapt to that coach's plan.”
That will be the test. Will this Maverick, capable of magic, be housed by the system of the city or simply be stifled by it. The hope is that it will not only be fun to find out, but that it will still be fun to see Rayan Cherki in full current, limited only through his own imagination.