The secret in 10 minutes: the Bernabéu transforms Diomande's life

Diomande was never meant to feature in Leganes' squad for the trip to Real Madrid, a game the team approached still clinging to hope of La Liga survival.

Cameroonian midfielder Ivan Neyou, a regular for Leganes, was carrying a knock, and his availability hung in the balance until the final moment.

Coach Borja Jimenez responded by naming a 24-man squad in case Neyou dropped out, with Diomande the last name added to the list. When Neyou passed his final fitness test, though, the young Ivorian kept his place.

The axe fell instead on third-choice goalkeeper Abajas. Borja chose to sacrifice a spare keeper to keep the striker alongside him on the bench.

Diomandé started on the bench, and Leganés did not need him early on, going ahead 2-1 before half-time.

Then Real Madrid did what they did all season. They needed comeback after comeback that year, more than usual, and this time they flipped it to 3-2.

Leganés threw everything forward in the closing minutes, chasing an equaliser. So Borja Jiménez turned to the unknown, a player nobody recognised, not even the journalists.

He had trained with the first team for just a week and a half, following a brief stint with the youth team and the reserves.

Jorge Bruto, the former head of the Leganés academy, remembered how his talent stunned everyone from day one. The young players would ask in amazement, "Where did you get this player from?" That reaction followed the levels Diomandé hit in training with the youth and reserve teams at the start of 2025.

Months earlier, in November 2024, Diomande joined Leganés in a complex deal involving several parties.

It was linked to a debt owed by the Rainbow company, former partner of the club's previous owners, Blue Crow. Part of that debt was settled through the transfer of Diomande's rights.

This side of the story stayed out of the spotlight until Rainbow recently announced it was taking legal action to claim its commercial rights tied to the player's development.

Before his move to Leganés, Diomande trialled at Chelsea, Liverpool and Newcastle. Rainbow's steep financial demands scuppered any switch to England.

When he arrived at Leganés, luck deserted him. An injury kept him out until February.

Once he returned, he tore through the age groups at an astonishing pace, until he convinced Borja Jiménez during first-team training that he deserved to stay with the seniors.

Jiménez, alongside sporting director Chema Indias, fought hard to keep him in the first team, even though the officials running the youth categories preferred that he keep shuttling between the third-division side and the seniors.

At the Santiago Bernabéu, officials from the Blue Crow group, the former owners of Leganés, watched the match with a different eye. They knew they possessed a talent that could earn them huge profits.

The moment Diomande began his warm-up, their attention turned entirely to him. Their phones stopped following the match. They focused solely on the young player.

He came on in the 86th minute. In around 10 minutes only, including stoppage time, he almost made an impact.

He touched the ball just 9 times, yet reached a top speed of 33.2 kilometres per hour.

Those brief minutes told their own story. He attempted 3 dribbles and beat his man with one of them, completed 80% of his passes (4 accurate out of 5), came very close to scoring, carved out Leganés's last dangerous chance and nearly won a penalty.

All of this happened in just 10 minutes, but it was enough to reveal the outlines of Diomande's story.

Leganes, freshly relegated, sold the Ivorian to Leipzig for his 20 million euro release clause. The deal came with strings attached: the fee would be paid in instalments, and Leganes would keep 10% of any future sale profit.

That clause explains why the Spanish club are now eyeing a move to Real Madrid worth around 135 million euros. Such a transfer would hand them roughly 10 million euros, unless the profit percentage is capped at a certain financial ceiling.

So Diomande may return to the stadium where his story with top-level European football began. Football and its paradoxes, coming full circle.