Intro
Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has revealed that he was close to quitting football when he was growing up.
Now earning his living as one of European football’s top strikers, his story could have been extremely different.
Speaking to the club’s official website, the Gunners star admitted that he fell out of love with the game as a youngster but revealed that, with his father’s support, he soon got back on track.
“Back then [when he was a child growing up], we were moving around quite a lot, and I played youth football for Nice, Laval, and Rouen. Sure, it was difficult to move around a lot, but now I can see that it’s been a massive benefit as it’s helped me settle into new environments very quickly,” he said.
“I’d had some problems with my knees and I couldn’t run as fast as I had been able to, so I fell out of love with football for a bit. I didn’t have a club, I wasn’t at school, I was just at home trying to think positively.
“I don’t know why, but I thought that I had to train hard because you never know in life, something can happen.
“Then after six months of hard work, my father called me and said, ‘Are you ready to go training with a team?’ and I said, ‘Yes of course!’ because I had worked for six months for that opportunity. That was when I started to train with Bastia and from there, that was the start of my professional career.”
