He’s 20 years old, but when he took the field against Chelsea, half the internet swore they were watching a 35-year-old veteran. 😂
Malick Yalcouyé was born on November 18, 2005, in Bandiagara and started kicking a ball in the youth academy of ASEC Mimosas, in Ivory Coast. In 2024, Brighton signed him from Göteborg in Sweden, but the path was not direct: he spent loan spells at Sturm Graz in Austria and then Swansea City in Wales before returning to England to fight for his place.
The goal came in a thrilling match that ended 4-3 to Chelsea, and that’s when everything exploded: his physical appearance, much more mature than his ID suggests, turned him into social media’s favorite “young player”.