Yan Diomandé was 18 years old and had just made his debut against Real Madrid when the phone rang from Ivory Coast.
On the other end, without beating around the bush, they told him that his sister Roxane, just 15 years old, had died: someone put something in her drink during a party in 2025 and she never woke up. Months later, the footballer wrote a public letter titled ‘Dear Roxane,’ in which he confessed that he could not even cry that day, that he still has no answers, and that the only way he found not to forget her was to turn the pain into work.
In the letter, he recalls that, even before he had real football boots, his sister told everyone that he would be the best in the world. That promise took him to the 2026 World Cup, where he shone in the Ivory Coast shirt, and he ended up signing for Real Madrid as one of the most expensive transfers in the club’s history. Every goal, he says, bears Roxane’s name.