Barcola Express

gradually blossoming

After starting out in football with his hometown team of AS Buers Villeurbanne, it was in 2010 that Barcola joined Olympique Lyonnais's academy, aged just eight. Season after season, the young Frenchman rose through Lyon's youth ranks until he became one of their most promising strikers.

Alongside teammates Rayan Cherki and Castello Lukeba, the player, who was born to a French mother and a Togolese father, broke through with OL's U19s in the 2019–2020 season, a campaign in which he scored 11 goals in 17 league games. With solid performances later down the line in the UEFA Youth League and with Les Gones' reserves in the French fourth tier, in September 2021, Barcola signed his first professional contract with the club that had developed him.

Two months later, he was given a baptism of fire for his first-team debut; his opening game as a professional was also his opening game in Europe, as Barcola came off the bench against Sparta Prague in the UEFA Europa League. 11 minutes was all the time he needed to prove decisive as he bagged an assist in what was a rip-roaring debut that would later earn him a place not only in the Lyon squad but also in the hearts of the fans, who were in awe of his pace and technical finesse.

GROWING AMBITIONS

After making 13 appearances across both domestic and European football in his first season as a pro, Barcola slowly but surely established himself as a key component of Lyon's front line during the 2022–2023 campaign. Mainly placed on the left wing, the young right-footer would support France international Alexandre Lacazette, with whom he formed a highly efficient strike partnership.

This was enough to attract the attention of Sylvain Ripoll, then head coach of France's U21s, with whom Barcola would make his debut in March before taking part in the UEFA Under-21 European Championship in Romania and Georgia three months later. At just 20 years of age, the young international ended the season with seven goals and ten assists in 31 games – numbers that would firmly establish him as one of the relevations of the season in France as well as earning him a place among the nominees for Ligue 1's Young Player of the Season award at the Trophées UNFP.

DID YOU KNOW?

In a league game against Montpellier HSC in May 2023, Barcola produced an exceptional performance in which he provided three assists for Alexandre Lacazette. In doing so, he became the youngest-ever player to rack up three assists in the same Ligue 1 game since records began and thereby joined a very exclusive circle of players to have achieved such a feat during the season, including Neymar Jr against Clermont and Lille and Franck Honorat against Angers. A few weeks earlier, the French striker had actually beaten another record when he became the youngest player in Europe's top five leagues to have been involved in ten goals across all competitions in 2023.