Scoring goals in the World Cup, this is the dream of many players and should be celebrated. But Embolo did not do this, on the evening of the 24th Beijing time, after helping the Swiss team score one goal, the tall Swiss center stood in place, raised his hands and looked solemn, he hoped to express his respect for Cameroon, his country of birth. It was with this goal that the Swiss team opened the game with a narrow 1-0 victory over Cameroon.
Embolo was born in 1997 in Yaoundé, Cameroon, but compared to his peers, little Embolo's childhood was not happy, because his parents divorced at a very young age. Embolo, who followed his mother, soon after went to France, leaving Cameroon, his country of birth. As he grew older and his physical condition became more and more outstanding, he was favored by scouts and started his football career in Basel, Switzerland. Since his stepfather is from Switzerland, Embolo chose to represent the country in continental competitions.
In the summer of 2012, Embolo played for the Basel Under-18 team, and after just one season, he started his Swedish Premier League career with excellent goalscoring efficiency for promotion to the first team. Like many black strikers from Africa, Embolo's physicality gives him a regular advantage in confrontations, creating plenty of scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates. In the summer of 2016, at the age of 19, he moved from Switzerland to Bundesliga side Schalke 04 and began his journey to play in the five major leagues.
Unfortunately, during Schalke's three seasons, Embolo did not improve much, and was often attacked by injuries, with a total of only 12 goals in three years, far from expectations. So in the summer of 2019, Schalke 04, who was struggling internally, chose to abandon Embolo and sold him to Borussia Mönchengladbach for 11 million euros.
Embolo who changed the environment seemed to have a trick, and his performance was greatly improved compared to before, although he could not compare with the top strikers in terms of goal efficiency, but he still worked diligently to do his best every time he played. In his first season at Borussia Mönchen, he scored more goals than in Schalke 04 in the previous three years. After handing over 11 goals and 4 assists last season, Ligue 1 giants Monaco threw an olive branch to him.
In this way, Embolo moved to Ligue 1 this season to continue his football career, and in addition to his average performance in the Europa League, his performance in the league is still trustworthy, and his record of 7 goals in 15 games is also worthy of a rotational position. And in the national team, he squeezed out the veteran Seferovic to become the absolute workhorse. Since making his senior international debut in March 2015, he has not missed any major competitions for Switzerland, making four appearances at Euro 2016 before the age of 20. In the 2018 World Cup, he was not an absolute workhorse and made four appearances, which is enough to show how much the Swiss team trusts this powerful young man.
Now, Embolo has finally repaid the country's recognition of him with his goal. What is even more valuable is that after scoring the goal, he also gave enough respect to his country of birth, Cameroon, and did not choose to celebrate. Maybe that's the beauty of football, it makes you feel warm a lot of the time.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Kunlong
Editor/Xu Zhao