Iliman Ndiaye: The inside story of Sheffield United star's journey from non-league to World Cup

With his shirt untucked and billowing in the Burton wind, Ndiaye’s touch and speed takes him past four opponents on the St George’s Park astroturf, before he turns back onto his right foot and beats a fifth. A deft drag-back then takes out two more, who almost collide as the forward races away. The opposition centre-half races over to block the shot, but can’t get anywhere near and about 11 seconds after the opposition goalkeeper first smashed the ball skywards, it is nestling neatly in the back of his net.

Ndiaye had just scored the type of goal that most could only dream about, but the most surprising part of the entire YouTube clip is the reaction of his teammates. There is no real surprise, no head-in-hands shock at what they had just witnessed. More a laugh; a shrug of the shoulders. To them, it was normal. The boy wonder Ndiaye has just done what Ndiaye does.

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“He had it all, from the moment we first saw him,” Mawer, who worked with the Sheffield United youngster at Boreham Wood, told The Star.

“He was frightening. He would sit defenders down – experienced, seasoned reserve players from senior clubs – and you thought: ‘Wow’. After about a minute of seeing him, I knew he was proper. I was looking around me, thinking: “Has anyone seen this kid? Where has he come from?”

From France, to Senegal and London and Sheffield, from non-league to the Premier League and now, the World Cup. It has been some journey.

The making of Ndiaye

Ndiaye was born in Rouen, a town north-west of Paris, to a Senegalese father and a French mother. Family shaped his development from a young age and he remembers training every day with his father and seven sisters, who were into athletics, to hone his skills.

“Iliman was from a sports family,” Samy Bouguern, president of Ndiaye’s former club Rouen Sapins, said. “The first memories are his ease in taking the ball and dribbling past any person. He was very comfortable from a young age with the ball at the foot. And the most important thing was how much he enjoyed playing football.”

His early promise didn’t go unnoticed. A Senegal news outlet rather boldly described Ndiaye as “a future Messi” and after a spell at Marseille, Ndiaye left France for Senegal when he was 11.

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“I liked living there because I was around family,” Ndiaye remembered. “It was different to playing in France. We played on sand, on beaches, and that’s where I learned my skills and got my strength. “It was a privilege to play at Marseille but I learned new things in Senegal.”

At 14, he was on the move again. He arrived in London without knowing a word of English, but with his dream of becoming a professional footballer undiminished.

Beginnings at Boreham

Mawer came across Ndiaye by luck. A community programme the youngster had joined had no education provider, and 14 youngsters were taken on by Boreham Wood. Of the 14, Ndiaye was the only one to stay.

“The others found work or whatever,” Mawer said. “But that’s how it began for Ili. Who knows what would have happened with him if he'd walked out the door? I've never met anyone quite like him. We had almost 600 boys on the programme most years and we had to give them a Plan B. I’d say to him: ‘Ili, what are you going to do if you're not a footballer?’ And he’d say: ‘Nah, I'm going to be a footballer.’

“He wouldn't relent from it, and I've never seen that before. I'd usually break them down in the end and they say they’d be a personal trainer or whatever as a back-up. But Ili was like: ‘Nah, I'm going to be a footballer’. Simple as that.

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“He’d play for our reserves and sometimes, he’d struggle. Up against big, ugly centre-halves who would just kick him all over, while he tried to get the ball down and play. He had to learn to cope with that. He's from the streets of France, so I can imagine there are not many better groundings to toughen you up and make you resilient than that.

“He came from a tough background and his English wasn’t great when he arrived. Maybe he just used to pick and choose when he understood me! But to move abroad at such a young age and adapt the way he did was phenomenal. I couldn’t do it.”

Ndiaye signed for United from Boreham Wood in 2019 and spent time on loan at Hyde United, before making a name for himself with some eye-catching displays for United’s U23s. With United’s senior squad light of bodies, and his former academy boss Paul Heckingbottom in caretaker charge after Chris Wilder’s departure, he was handed a Premier League debut away at Leicester, coming off the bench as one of the few positives in a 5-0 defeat.

Djakaria Diallo and Anthony Desoutter, who worked with Ndiaye at Rouen, both told this newspaper of their “indescribable pride” and “great joy” at Ndiaye’s top-flight debut. Mawer admits it brought a tear to his eye. “It was like a proud dad moment,” he smiled. “The thought of how it will change their life. You’ve played a part in their journey to a Premier League player and you know how hard they have worked.

“All those times he told me he will be a footballer. He was right, and I can’t see why he can’t go on to be a Premier League player and be a good career. He’s as naturally gifted as anyone I’ve seen – I would definitely pay my £20 to watch what he produces - and his attitude won’t change. He has that boyhood love of football and is more at home with the ball at his feet, but works just as hard without it. He’s tenacious in the tackle and plays with a smile. You can’t help but like Ili, and he deserves all the rewards – because of how hard he works, and the journey he has been on.”

Starting again

But what should have been just the start of Ndiaye’s United career threatened, at one stage, to be as good as it got. His contract status led to one member of the Blades’ board, now departed, to suggest that he shouldn’t be considered for the United first-team and both sides looked to be heading for a parting of the ways. But a breakthrough came when Ndiaye put pen to paper on a new contract last year and made his full debut in a 6-2 win over Peterborough United. Grasping the sense of occasion, Ndiaye duly scored twice.

Linking up again with Heckingbottom after he was installed as United’s permanent boss, replacing Slavisa Jokanovic after the Serb’s short spell at Bramall Lane, Ndiaye went from strength to strength and as United recovered from strugglers to reach the play-offs, Ndiaye was a stud’s length away from sending United to Wembley. As it was, Brice Samba of Nottingham Forest saved with his stud and then was the hero of the penalty shootout as Forest went on to win promotion. Heckingbottom keeps a stud in a case on his desk, a reminder of the fine margins of football.

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When much of the talk in the summer was how United were going to replace Morgan Gibbs-White’s goals, assists and general impact, many overlooked that United may have had the solution already in their building. Ndiaye appears to have seized upon the opportunity created by Gibbs-White’s loan return and embraced the pressure of stepping up. Nine goals already so far is two more than his tally from last term and earned him a place in the Senegal squad for this winter’s World Cup.

“It's been some journey and I couldn't be happier for him,” Oli McBurnie, Ndiaye’s strike partner and the man with often the best view in the house as the 22-year-old tortures opposition defenders, told The Star. “I know he's not as comfortable in the interviews as a lot of people but he's such a good kid. So humble and down to earth but at the same time, he has such an inner confidence.

“He's such a joy to play with and he makes me look good a lot of the time because I'll give him the ball and he'll go and do something crazy with it. So I'm really enjoying playing with him and when me and him are at it, we're right up there in the division to cause anyone problems. He's been excellent, I can't speak highly enough of him.

“And if he goes to the World Cup and does his thing, there'll be no one happier for him than all the boys here.”

*An earlier version of this story initially featured in 2021.

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