Antoine Mendy #24

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Mendy caught the goalscoring bug from a young age, joining Nice’s academy as a striker at the age of 10. As a teenager he struggled to make the grade as an attacking player and was hampered by Osgood-Schlatter disease, a growing pain caused by inflammation in the shinbone. His coaches at Nice decided to move him to play in defence and he has established himself in the first team as an attack-minded right-back. “At first I didn’t really want to play as a full-back and I said so to the coach,” Mendy said after signing his first pro contract aged 18. “I wanted to be close to the opposition’s goal and to score, but the more I played in defence, the more I started to like it … I’ve got role models who have shown me that you can be a full-back and still score goals.” This will be his first World Cup and he’s got every chance of starting under Pape Thiaw.

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