The French striker from FC Basel will face Nice on Thursday in the first leg of the Europa League Conference, after recovering from a long Covid which severely handicapped his career.
The name of Jean-Kévin Augustin had disappeared from the radars of French football since his departure from FC Nantes last July. He reappeared twice this week. First because his team, FC Basel, will face, Thursday, April 13, OGC Nice in the quarter-finals of the Europa League Conference. But also in an extra-sporting affair.
Earlier this week, the British media The Athletic claimed that Leeds, the club where he played three games in 2019-2020, had been ordered to pay him 28 million euros in compensation. The English club did not respect the obligation to buy him from Leipzig at the end of his loan. Contacted by the British media, Leeds said “not being able to comment on an ongoing legal case“.
The Frenchman hasn’t hit the jackpot yet, because the English club could appeal, but this case is a new episode in the short, but so intense career of “JK”. At 26, the native of Paris found in Switzerland the meaning of his vocation: to play to score goals. The formula goes without saying for a professional footballer but for Augustin, it was no longer obvious. Because the Habs have indeed spent a lot of time away from the field.
Several “youthful mistakes”
Before going into exile abroad, “JK” was above all a great hope for Paris Saint-Germain. “He was clearly on top. Everything seemed easy for him. It allowed him to be upgraded and we trusted him because we knew what he was capable of.”, remembers Dylan Batubinsika, former teammate of Augustin in the youth teams of PSG. With the France U19 team, the young striker won the Euro in the summer of 2016. He then finished best player and top scorer in the competition ahead of a certain … Kylian Mbappé.
“When he was on a good day, physically, technically and mentally, he was unplayable.”, assures Batubinsika. And on a bad day? “When he was younger, he was a little lazy”, smiles the one who is now a defender at Maccabi Haifa. Perceived as a great talent, Jean-Kévin Augustin will multiply the misconduct. In September 2017, he was thus excluded from the Espoirs selection after an altercation with Sylvain Ripoll, at half-time in a match against Chile.
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A year later, he informed the coach, by SMS, of his refusal to honor his summons to the Espoirs, citing a “muscle fatigue“. Augustin will no longer play in the Blue jersey, and Didier Deschamps, the A coach, evokes a “mind-blowing situation”. At only 21 years old, “JK” carries the image of an unmanageable player. “People think I’m a bully. (…) I am perceived as an arrogant guy, a little jerk. (…) Basically, I’m a good boy, it’s just that I made mistakes when I was young“, he defends himself in The Team.
Missed passages in Monaco, Leeds and Nantes
“He is a good boy, super nice and very endearing. But he has a strong character sometimes. That’s the whole paradox”, testifies Batubinsika. On the sporting level, after a good start with Leipzig, Augustin is on loan in 2019-2020. First in Monaco, then in Leeds. Two failures and a chaotic season for him. Comes the hour of the rebound, in October 2020 in Nantes, where he finds his friend from the time of the PSG training center, Roli Pereira de Sa, and Ludovic Blas, with whom he won the Euro U19.
“Very quickly, we realize that he is not fit to play football.recalls Jean-Marcel Boudard, journalist at West France which follows the news of FC Nantes on a daily basis. After a summer without a club, “JK” is not physically ready. His image as a dilettante player comes back to him like a boomerang in the face. “It’s common knowledge that he was inhaling laughing gas.”confides a source that revolves around the Nantes club.
What a member of the player’s entourage confirmed to 20 minutes in January 2022: “If the question is: has JKA ever consumed balloons, yes, unfortunately, that for once is factual. Thank God it’s a practice he has since stopped..” Nantes then prepared an individualized training program for Augustin before sending him to the reserve team.
Affected by a long form of Covid
“When he landed in reserve, he was no longer the same player. He could no longer control, missed his shots and his sequences. He was lost“, explained to West France Anthony Walongwa, former player of the B team of the Canaries who had faced a promising Augustin in 2017. In March 2021, examinations made it possible to put the finger on what was wrong: JK suffered from a long Covid and Guillain- Barré, which alters his motor skills and physical abilities.
“I didn’t find him depressed, because he’s never really in a bad mood. But he explained that it was really galley“, remembers Dylan Batubinsika. The diagnosis still allows JK to move forward and continue, with a goal, his rehabilitation. Within the Nantes reserve team, Augustin takes on the role of “big brother”, assures Jean-Marcel Boudard. He will even be on the score sheet for the final of the Coupe de France won in May 2022 by Nantes against Nice.
The Niçois, precisely, Jean-Kévin Augustin will find them Thursday evening with FC Basel, a club in which he finds the joys of starting, even if he has not yet been able to play a full match this season. “The competitor in me has returnedhe explained to Sunday newspaper last March. My body had let me down.” After years of hardship, the former great hope of PSG wants to be a philosopher: “If I hadn’t had the long Covid, I might have kept the mentality that played tricks on me.” At only 26 years old, “JK” still has plenty of time to catch up.