When Flore Baugnies and her three sons visit Leny Yoro in Manchester, they do not fly. With Romeo, 15, Eden, 13, and Esteban, 11, bundled in the back of their van, they drive from Croix, on the outskirts of Lille, France, to Calais and cross the English channel by ferry. On a good run the journey takes around nine hours.
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“They say a holiday starts the moment you slam the door,” Baugnies tells The Athletic. “And the journey is part of it.
“We want our children to experience what we experienced as children. You must not lose those values and traditions. The children are still young, they don’t realise it, but when they’re older, they’ll have these memories.”
Baugnies is conscious of keeping her children grounded. She tells them that their older brother has his story and it’s up to them to write their own.
“We try to stay humble and continue to live our little normal lives, it can quickly go to your head. Leny’s life is very good, but it’s Leny’s life,” she says.
On Wednesday, the Frenchman has a chance to write another chapter of his story as Manchester United face Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League final in Bilbao.
Despite having spent over a decade watching her son play football, the nerves never go away.
“I’m starting to get used to it, but at the beginning, you’re always scared, scared he’ll make a mistake,” she says. “You want to go out there and tell him, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine’. Every time I watch a match, I’m pretty stressed.”
Yet for all the nerves, there is great pride in Yoro’s calm and composed performances, which have quickly taken him to the top.
It was two o’clock in the morning in France. Baugnies, 5,500 miles (9,000km) away, was watching on TV as her son limped off in the 35th minute of United’s opening pre-season tour game against Arsenal in late July in Los Angeles.
Seeing him in pain hurt her. She was worried, praying it was nothing too serious. She sent him a few messages to check in but equally she didn’t want to pester him, a difficult balance to strike as a parent.
Having joined from Lille just 10 days beforehand as United’s most expensive summer signing, the deal worth an initial £52million ($67.9m), scans later revealed the 18-year-old had fractured his fifth metatarsal in his left foot, putting him out for just over three months.
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“I would have liked to have been with him then,” Baugnies says. Before leaving for Manchester last year, it was easier for her to gauge her son’s mood. He was living at home with his three younger brothers in their apartment on the outskirts of Lille. The mother and son’s connection is almost telepathic.
Before Yoro’s younger brothers came along, it was just the two of them.
“Leny was with me all the time,” says Baugnies, who named her first son after her love for American singer Lenny Kravitz. “The first steps, riding a bike, even kicking a ball.
“We went to the park, we stuck to each other like glue. Everything I did, I did with him. We don’t really need to say a lot. I just understand when he’s OK or not OK. I can just sense it.”
Although they all get on well, Yoro grew up slightly apart from his three brothers, given the age gap; he is eight years older than the fourth child, Esteban.
Yoro and his brothers (from left to right) Romeo, Eden and Esteban, at Christmas two years ago in a photo taken by his mum (Credit: Family collection)
“My relationship with Leny is different from the one I have with his other brothers,” his mother says. “They (the trio) are closer to each other.
Baugnies, who comes from a large, tight-knit family herself, does not view raising her four boys as a sacrifice even though she quit her job working in sales in Paris and her social life ground to a halt.
“It was difficult for me but they had a good childhood and I made sure they didn’t see all the bad things that were going on around them,” she says. “They weren’t spoiled but they were never deprived of anything.
“If I had to do it again, I would. Time passes so quickly.”
Already at three years old, the centre-back who is now 6ft 3in (190cm), was tall for his age. At times, his school teachers mistook him for a pupil in the years above.
“He never really got up to any mischief,” says Baugnies. “I’m not going to say he’s a model child, because they all have their little faults, but he was very calm and wise, a reserved child.”
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Yoro grew up playing football in a playground opposite his home in Saint-Maurice, a suburb of Paris, before playing for his first club Alfortville to the south-east of the French capital. It was his father, Alain Yoro, who had played for Lille’s academy, who took him as Baugnies had just had their second child, Romeo.
After the youngest, Esteban, was born in 2013, Yoro’s parents split up. She took her children south to Bormes-les-Mimosas for six months to live with their aunt, before heading back north to Lille. It was then that Yoro, aged 12, joined Villeneuve d’Ascq, known locally as VAM.
When not playing football, the boys cycled, went to the swimming pool and every year went on holiday to their cousins in the south of France. As a family, they celebrated birthdays and had barbecues, Christmas was a big occasion, as was the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6, with the traditional Galette des Rois cake.
“The only time he messes around is when he is with his brothers in a very small group,” says his mother. “They played so much football in the house and often broke things. But even with the wider family, he was quite quiet.”
His bedroom was very simple, there were no posters stuck to the wall. He used to play FIFA on his PlayStation all the time but Baugnies never bought any of the football magazines and says her son did not have an idol and did not support a team, save France, growing up.
“If you went into his room, you wouldn’t have even known he played football,” she says.
Robert Dervaux, his youth coach at VAM, had never seen such talent.
Off the field, Yoro was shy. But on it, he was a leader and Dervaux made him captain of the under-13 team despite him being a year younger than his peers.
“As soon as he stepped onto the field, he grew in stature,” he says. “I put him at right-back, up front, in every position, he was immense.
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“On the field, he was a winner, very important for communication and relationships with others. He was simple, respectful and grateful for all his mother did for him.”
Dervaux contacted a Lille scout. “Come and see this kid, he is exceptional. I can’t keep him.”
Yoro impressed at the Lille trial in 2017 but his mother never thought he would play professional football.
“At 13, 14, 15, I didn’t imagine he was going to become what he is today,” she says. “I could see he was enjoying himself. I was happy. Then we’d go home. It was a hobby. It wasn’t professional, not at all. I always said to him: the day you don’t enjoy it, you stop.
“He never said to me ‘Mum, I’m absolutely going to do this’. I even wonder if he knew that one day it would happen to him. It’s happened so quickly for Leny.
“I think it took him a long time to say to himself, ‘This is it’ because he’s so humble. There are even times when he wonders, ‘Why me?’ Sometimes he doesn’t realise all the qualities he has as a top player. Whereas his brother, Eden, is convinced he’ll go pro. He even tells me that he’s better than Leny!”
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 & 𝒏𝒐𝒘 😍
Leny Yoro et nos diplômés 2023 ont reçu leur BAC lundi au Domaine de Luchin 🎓@leny_yoro ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZjaMixgnX4
— LOSC (@losclive) April 24, 2024
Although many coaches at Lille admired his personality, including Olivier Szkwarok, who was in charge of Lille under-16s, and Dervaux, who thought he was a future Raphael Varane, there were some who doubted his ability to play at the highest level.
Baugnies remembers that time. When Yoro was playing for the under-16s, aged 15, the same year he had his braces removed, he grew 10 centimetres and got injured without even playing.
“People said that he was quite fragile,” she says. “They didn’t have much faith in him but we’re happy to say to all those people, this is where he is today.”
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According to Yoro’s mother, using a nutritionist was a great help.
“The big change came when we really started to pay attention to what he ate and how he recovered. We had to know how many calories he was consuming per day to see if it was too much or too little,” she says.
“It was hard to do it regularly. He was still a child and you always had to remind him. At that age, it’s very difficult for a teenager to think: I have to eat well, go to bed early and stretch.”
Such discipline was required from a young age. Yoro, 15 at the time, was unexpectedly called upon in the 79th minute of Lille Under-19s’ UEFA Youth League game against Sevilla in October 2021 after Baptiste Rolland was shown a red card.
“He should never have played,” says his mum. “That’s why sometimes I think he’s got a lucky star. You don’t succeed just because you’re good, there’s hard work and a lot of luck in football. That match was the one that really set everything off.”
To mark that turning point at the age of 15, Yoro wore that numbered shirt at Lille, the same number he wears at United.
Aged 16, Baugnies recalls him making his full professional Ligue 1 debut in September against Toulouse, which Lille won 2-1.
“He made a big error and they conceded,” she says. But being thrust into the limelight helped develop his mental resilience.
“If he makes a mistake, he picks himself up straight away. If they lost a match, he came home and we didn’t necessarily talk about the game, we left him alone. He’d go up to his room and in the moment he’s not good but the next day he goes again, he’s already thinking about the next match. But he still questions himself, of course.”
His first club at Arlfortville, aged 4 or 5 (Credit: Family collection)
When Yoro reaches out to his mother to ask if she’s OK, that’s when she knows something’s not quite right.
“I think everyone needs to open up and talk sometimes,” she says. “I used to be like that; I always solved my problems on my own. Maybe, with experience, he’ll come round to it. But for the moment when you want to get something out of Leny, it’s like getting blood out of a stone!
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“When he had his injury, he said: “Listen, it’s OK, they have to operate”. He never complains.
“He never tells us what’s going on in the dressing room, he never has a bad word to say about one of his team-mates or the coach. He’s very respectful about that and keeps himself to himself.”
That attitude has been evident from a young age.
“In all my years as a coach, I’ve never seen such a young player with so much maturity,” Paulo Fonseca, who took over as Lille manager in the summer of 2022, told The Athletic last year.
Baugnies has never seen Yoro lose his temper and they rarely have big arguments. “Not like I could sometimes have with his brothers!” she says.
“He asserts himself on the pitch, but he’s not going to hurt for the sake of hurting. He’s a really nice guy.”
But that does not stop Yoro from being an ultimate competitor. She has seen her son become “more assertive” on the pitch, given the Premier League’s physicality and says he had to “toughen up” and “build his strength to go into battle”.
That was shown when the centre-back put his body — actually his head — on the line to block Malick Fofana’s shot in the Europa League quarter-final second leg against Lyon in April, which United won 5-4, (7-6 on aggregate).
“That was a crazy game!” Baugnies, who was watching at home with her sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces and nephews, says. “I will remember that game forever.”
United had been monitoring Yoro for at least a year, submitting detailed reports about a player their scouting department believed had the highest potential of any centre-back his age across Europe. But many had expected Yoro to sign for Real Madrid that summer or in a year’s time when his Lille contract was due to expire.
“He always knew that at some point he’d go abroad, he’s always loved the English league, so for him it was logical,” she says. “It’s a very big club, with an incredible history, I know he’s always loved that club.”
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Yoro had the advice of his representative Jorge Mendes from Gestifute and spoke to his older cousin Charly too but “when Leny wants to do something, he will do it”, his mother says.
“We discussed it a bit. I really let him make his own decision. We talked about it without really talking about it, and one day I think he just said quite simply: ‘Well, that’s it, I’m going to Manchester’.
“It was up to him to forge his own path and become an adult.
“They (United) really had a project for him, a project to make a team with young players, and he really liked that. He could be part of those who would ‘rebuild’ Manchester United’s history.”
Interested clubs would meet with Mendes and Yoro’s parents in neutral venues — either in Lille or just over the border in Belgium.
“We were a little more secluded, calmer, because we did not want everyone talking, trying to find out where we were going every time we went somewhere,” says Baugnies.
“The clubs are all very respectful. It’s strange to see how much they want your son. When they’re there, they show you that they really want him to come. It makes you feel valued. It’s really a world apart.
“We’re normal people and when I tell you that it happened to Leny just like that, the same thing happened to us too.”
Just like Yoro, Baugnies has had to adapt. When Yoro played professionally for Lille, she used to read everything written about him. “As soon as I saw something mean, it annoyed me,” she says. But she soon learned that this wasn’t serving her at all.
Yoro with his dogs, Kingston and Doogie; and playing for United (Credit: Personal collection; Getty Images)
When Thierry Henry criticised Yoro for his performance during United’s 4-1 defeat at Newcastle United this season, it slightly irritated Baugnies, especially given France legend Henry had been Yoro’s coach with the country’s Under-21s.
“He had the right to say what he wanted to say,” she says. “Leny hadn’t played a great game but when people say things like that, it stings. It’s my son.
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“But it doesn’t matter — all that matters is that he realised he didn’t play the match he needed to play and that he played a better match afterwards. We take a step back because if we’re angry, we’re going to pass it on to our children.”
Such criticism is just another aspect of this new world the family is trying to navigate.
“Even though I’m very happy for him, a mother always worries,” she says. “It’s a very complicated world. There’s a lot of money involved, there are people arriving all of a sudden who weren’t there to begin with, and you have to be very careful with everyone. It’s a very tiring life, even for us. Of course, there are more serious things in life but you do have to experience it to know.
“People think it’s great. They make a lot of money because they kick a ball. I can tell you it’s extremely complicated to be a professional footballer. They never stop, they never have a holiday. Mentally, it’s extremely difficult. It’s not an easy job.”
Initially, Baugnies was considering moving her and Yoro’s brothers’ lives to Manchester to live with the teenager who had only got his driving licence in February last year.
“He was only 18, so he was very young,” she says. “At home, I’m a mum who does everything for this child. He didn’t cook, he didn’t do the dishes or tidy his bedroom.”
But Yoro preferred for his brothers to stay. He didn’t want everyone to move just for him in case things did not turn out well.
Baugnies describes United’s season as “sad” and the Europa League has kept them going. Erik ten Hag’s departure in late October did not affect Yoro too much and he has a good relationship with his successor Ruben Amorim, who handed him his debut against Arsenal on December 4.
“I’m not just saying this for your article, but I’ve never heard anything bad about the coach or the players,” she says. “It’s a healthy relationship.”
She describes her son, who lives with his girlfriend in Manchester, as a “homebody” and more of a “solitary person”.
“He goes to training and then comes home,” she says. “He’s like all teenagers, he has his PlayStation, his dogs, he has a quiet, simple life.”
That was how he was at Lille in his early teens too. Even when he was old enough to go out, he never did — parties were not his thing.
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Outside of football, food — one of his favourite meals is chicken and green beans — and fashion remain his passions. “He buys so many clothes, we don’t know where to put them!” she says. “And he loves to eat, going out to restaurants.”
But Yoro has got used to this more secluded life over time. At first, it was strange. In Lille, he used to go to the shopping centre with his mother but every two minutes they would be stopped by someone asking for a photo. Although Baugnies recognises this is part of their job, it put Yoro off venturing out.
“I remember thinking maybe the fact of becoming ‘someone’ might have turned his head, but not at all,” she says.
That was one less worry to think about but naturally Baugines is protective of her son. “I’m wary of everyone,” she says. “I want to make sure that no one takes advantage of him. It’s hard because sometimes I feel like I’m always fighting with everyone. Even if he is what he is today, he’s still my son. For me, it’s not Leny Yoro the footballer, it’s always Leny.”
As Baugnies watches on from the San Mames stadium in Bilbao on Wednesday alongside her sons, there will be no special rituals. She will say a little prayer for her eldest and let destiny take its course.
(Top illustration: Will Tullos/The Athletic; photos Ash Donelon, Alex Livesey, James Gill/Getty Images)
