.png)
1 day ago
7
Adrien Truffert has form for hitting the ground running. At Rennes, the club he joined at 13 and spent a decade at until leaving for Bournemouth in the summer, his debut arrived as a substitute against Monaco and culminated in him teeing up the equaliser with a wicked left-foot cross and then scoring a stoppage-time winner. Aged 18, Truffert sent a shot underneath Benjamin Lecomte, the opposition goalkeeper who visits Bournemouth with Fulham on Friday. “I ran off celebrating and slid on my knees,” Truffert says, “like you dream of doing as a kid after scoring your first goal.”
Truffert has excelled for Bournemouth from the moment he contained Mohamed Salah on his first outing in a fearless team performance at Liverpool – where he also outshone his predecessor at left-back Milos Kerkez – and has played every minute in the Premier League this season.
“We know we lost, so it cannot be perfect, but I think we played very well,” he says of Bournemouth’s trip to Anfield and their sole defeat in the competition this campaign. “I was very excited because it was my first game and it was a very good night. We have made a good start, but now we need to continue and win this week.”
Listening to Truffert discuss his £11m move to the south coast, the first transfer of his career, it is little surprise he has slotted in so seamlessly. Staff talk of an intelligent individual and he is evidently switched on. He recognised the benefits of signing in June, to bed in during pre-season, and has spent the past two years having English lessons, aware how valuable they would prove if he achieved his ambition of reaching the Premier League.
“That’s why I can speak a little English,” says the 23-year-old, a modest line given this first major interview is entirely in the language. “I think it is important to do something outside of football, to change your mindset and think about other things.” Put to Truffert that this speaks volumes of his character, he seeks no acclaim. “Maybe, but it was my parents who told me it was important.”
Truffert’s family, including his younger brother Florian, a midfielder at Rennes, were part of his entourage when he signed, and maybe it was meant to be. Not because Bournemouth had landed a longstanding target but because Truffert spent time in the town as a toddler. He was born in Liège, Belgium, but when he was six months old his parents, Jean-Christophe and Laurence, moved to Southampton owing to his father’s work as a laboratory director. They spent two years living in the area.
“My dad says that I took my first steps on Bournemouth beach,” Truffert says. “After those two years we returned to Belgium for six months and then moved to France.”
Truffert has been capped once by Didier Deschamps’s side, in 2022, and last year he was part of the France side that won silver at the Olympics, the medal earning him a French knighthood. “I have the papers to show I have Chevalier d’honneur,” he says, exhibiting a proud smile. His teammates in Paris included Michael Olise, Maghnes Akliouche, Rayan Cherki, Jean-Philippe Mateta and Désiré Doué, with whom he also played at Rennes. His manager also happened to be his idol.
“Thierry Henry, one of the best French players,” Truffert says. “When I was younger I played as a left and sometimes right winger, so that’s why I looked up to him. When I was about 17 or 18 I became a full-back. At the Olympics I played more as a defender, so Gaël Clichy [the assistant] mainly spoke to me, but when it was a team discussion he [Henry] taught me a lot of good things. His football brain was amazing, you could feel his experience and he wanted to pass it on to us.”
Truffert was identified as an ideal fit for Andoni Iraola, whose approach is underpinned by intensity. “When you apply much more intensity than your opponent, I think it’s the best way to win,” Truffert says. “You have to do other things, of course, but if you start by winning more duels than your opponent, you have a much better chance to win. We run a lot because everybody wants to attack, but everybody also wants to defend.
“For us it’s not only defenders who defend and attackers who attack. It’s everybody together. We like to do everything together on the pitch – and that’s the best way to win.”
Truffert was captain at Rennes last season and at Bournemouth he leads by example; he trains how he plays and is regarded as a manager’s dream. He is also vastly experienced for his age with more than 200 career appearances and has played in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. In 2022-23, his Rennes side did the double over a Paris Saint-Germain side featuring Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi. The English top flight, he says, was the next logical step.
after newsletter promotion
Truffert sounded out friends and former teammates, including Jérémy Doku. “I think he’s one of the best 1v1 players I’ve seen. Mbappé was also tough to play against and you learn a lot against these kinds of players because they can flip a game,” Truffert says. “Now at Man City, Jérémy plays more on the left, but when he was at Rennes he played more on the right so I had to face him a lot in training.
“It was good for me to level up. He told me the intensity is very different to Ligue 1. In France, it is maybe a bit more tactical – here every game you have to run a lot, no rest.”
The downtime Truffert has had since swapping a Bournemouth hotel for a house in Poole last month has allowed him to explore the area with his wife, Floriane, and their chow chow, Blue, named after the colour of its tongue. “We like to walk around the town or by the sea; there is a very nice park in Parkstone,” Truffert says.
Being joined by a contingent of French-speaking players in Amine Adli, Eli Kroupi and Bafodé Diakité this summer helped him settle. “There is everything to be happy.”
According to the analytics company Gradient Sports, Truffert ranks second for total distances covered and high-speed running distances this season among full-backs and wing-backs and, overall, he is the league’s third-most athletic player, behind only Daniel Muñoz and Jackson Tchatchoua. Only Pedro Porro and Hugo Bueno have completed more crosses into the opposition box. “It’s been a good start, but I’m sure I can and will do better,” Truffert says. “I’m here to show my quality.”
