Demba Ba still remembers the doctor’s words, cutting through him like a knife.
The consultant had bad news. The back injury that was troubling the 18-year-old was serious enough to mean his professional football career was over before it had started.
“I was told I would not be able to play. But eight years later, I was scoring here,” he tells i, pointing to the imposing stands of St James’ Park over his right shoulder.
“People try to measure careers by trophies but they are won and lost by centimetres. For me, playing at Newcastle after what I came through was a trophy in itself.”
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Few professional footballers embrace the second act of their career with this kind of relish but to understand why Ba is different you have to know how he got here.
He took the path less trodden to the Premier League – the Sunday leagues of the Parisian suburbs rather than the gilded academies that hothoused his peers.
Still playing amateur football in his late teens, Ba self-funded trials in England and fuelled his trips on crisps and water. “It has given me a unique perspective,” he says.
There have been no half measures in his new mission. He has jetted across Europe, met Premier League executives and absorbed lessons.
Ralf Rangnick, the man who tutored him as a Hoffenheim player, is his mentor. He was making monthly trips to Moscow to observe Rangnick at work before he moved to Manchester United, seeing close up what makes him such a “genius”.
“I’m a student of Ralf; with him it’s like I’m in the library. When he opens up, I read,” he says.
“People often say, ‘Let them do their own mistakes so they can learn’. My big problem – why do we only learn from mistakes?
“If Ralf can save me five years by telling me, ‘There’s a trap here, there’s a trap there’, I’m going to take it. He is scary: he has so much knowledge of the game and so much energy. He never stops.
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“He told me when we started, ‘I am an ‘A’ person, but I surround myself with A+ people’. That’s what makes him so special. He’s so confident that he doesn’t hesitate to surround himself with people who are going to improve him.
“He always told me: ‘Don’t be a ‘B’ person, because they surround themselves with Cs and Ds because they are scared’. One of his big skills is seeing the A+ people and bringing them along with him. He has a power of conviction that is tremendous.
“I saw him speaking with players to tell them what he wanted them to do and it is a method of communication which is so different. It is tailored to the individual and is about improvement. There are not many people who can bring that level of detail to their coaching or their direction, and you can see the players buy into it. I could see the improvement from day to day and the way the players were changing.
“He did it with me when I was a player. When you see the whole plan that he sets out to you, you cannot say no. I knew then that this guy was special.”
Ba is enthused by the start Rangnick has made at Old Trafford. “He will change things in the Premier League. He will 100 per cent be a success and the club will change because of him. If he is given the chance to work how he wants to work, there is no doubt that he will be a special coach for them.”
Ba says he won’t try to copy Rangnick. But, enthused by words of encouragement from Lars Kornetka, Ragnick’s trusted video analyst, he believes he is ready to make a difference in the Championship or Premier League. He spoke to Newcastle’s new owners last month – Rangnick was open to the sporting director role there – and recently talked to Marseille.
“I want to make the right decision, not to jump into it simply for the sake of jumping,” he says. “Football is full of emotions and sometimes we make decisions based on emotion.
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“I try to have a different perspective. It’s a bit like those spider cameras they use. It is not the same view as the touchline camera and I’ve always tried to look at the whole situation and, wherever I go, I want to make a difference, not simply be part of it.”
Any club that does roll the dice on Ba will be getting a progressive, deep thinker – about the game and life. He is fascinated by Brentford’s ability to challenge the best – “The big clubs in England can be beaten, but not by attacking them where their strength lies” – and Newcastle’s new coach Eddie Howe. “Lokomotiv Moscow loved his profile as a coach. Would the top five coaches in the world be able to do what he did at Bournemouth?” he asks.
Ba is well aware that when he does get a job, he will be a trailblazer. “People say to me, in the top leagues in Europe, there’s maybe only one or two coaches who are black and probably no sporting directors. I don’t see that because I don’t care,” he said.
“At some point what will happen is that we break all those barriers. Yes, it’s a fact but I’m coming into it the same as other guys. Their blood is red, my blood is red. My skin has a bit more melanin than them but that’s it. If others have a problem with this, it’s their problem, not mine.
“I want to change things and if I can do that, I’ve served something that is bigger than me.”
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