Sixty-three minutes gone at the Emirates Stadium and Nicolas Nkoulou, on his full Watford debut, did something that told a story. It was assured, calm and the sort of move that only someone with confidence in their own ability would attempt, let alone pull off.
The ball bounced 20 yards outside the Watford box and the Cameroon central defender controlled it. Emile Smith Rowe was breathing down his neck and Alexandre Lacazette was closing in to make a tackle. Instead of panicking, Nkoulou scooped his right foot under the ball and guided it over the Frenchman’s right leg. His second touch took the ball away from Bukayo Saka and his third popped a pass off to Joao Pedro to start a Watford counter-attack.
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It was a moment of improvisation that leaned on a 13-year professional career on some of the biggest stages in world football.
Although Nkoulou joining on a free transfer a month earlier may have gone under the radar, Watford possess a player with the ability to add an extra dimension to a central defensive unit that many fans feel has not been reinforced enough.
The Athletic looks back at Nkoulou’s career and finds a player as stylish off the field as he is on it.
It wouldn’t have been a surprise to see Nkoulou in an Arsenal shirt at the Emirates last weekend.
In recent years Arsenal, along with other Premier League teams like Leicester City, Manchester United and Leeds, have been linked with the defender. More than 450 appearances for Monaco, Marseille, Lyon and Torino have kept him on lists of many European clubs including Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus, too.
“A player of his talent will be able to thrive,” Cameroonian journalist Njie Enow tells The Athletic. “He should have made the move a long time ago. Arsenal were very interested in the player and so many more and now is the right time to make the move.
“The composure that he has as a centre-back is incredible. He is a flamboyant defender and has a wonderful mastery of the game.”
Last season at Torino, he largely played at the centre of a back three in a 3-5-2. Using smarterscout, which employs advanced analytics to break down elements of a footballer’s game and rate from them from zero to 99, you can see that he frequently picked up loose balls and blocked passes (ball recoveries and interceptions 98 out of 99), which is a sign of a player who reads the game well.
Although he doesn’t tend to engage in many defensive actions (eg, blocks, tackles, clearances), his eight out of 99 rating for disrupting opposition moves could point to him wanting to patrol his area rather than go diving in.
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This summer, his contract expired at Torino, where he had spent four seasons including under the guidance of former Watford head coach Walter Mazzarri, and he was waiting for the next steps. “My ears are tense, my eyes open,” he said after his final game against Benevento. “I am waiting for new offers to find out where I am going.
“If Marseille are interested in me? I still feel them as my favourite team. For what I went through there and for what Marseille represents, it’s quite flattering. I don’t close any doors.”
But a return to the French coastal city where he played more than 200 times, including in the Champions and Europa Leagues, never materialised.
He had won his first trophy at Marseille, the French League Cup, after a £3 million move from Monaco. Initially, he played under Didier Deschamps then later Marcelo Bielsa, before joining Lyon and then leaving for Turin in 2016.
Staying in Italy this summer was mooted. Genoa were interested and it is understood they offered a three-year deal but, as ever, Gino Pozzo had his ear to the ground and acted. Around the same time that Nkoulou’s agent was negotiating for another of his clients to head from England to Italy (Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa from Fulham to Napoli), the first discussions over Nkoulou coming the other way took place.
Francisco Sierralta and Christian Kabasele’s respective injuries after the transfer window closed then encouraged Watford to act on the interest. His name was top of the eligible free agents’ roster and, with groundwork already done, the Premier League club were able to seal a short-term deal until the end of the 2021-22 season with little hassle. Nkoulou was keen to restart his career too.
His preference on shirt number would have been No 3. Why? “It is a wink to those close to me because I am the youngest of three children,” he once explained. He wore that number at all three of his French clubs and for Cameroon, before opting for 33 for the majority of the time at Torino. With Danny Rose wearing No 3 and Juraj Kucka No 33 at Watford, Nkoulou had to go for No 13.
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Family means the world to Nkoulou, who lost his mother in 2010 and his father four years later. “The sky fell on my head,” he said in an interview with L’Equipe in 2015. “My football was not going well and I received this terrible blow. I thought, ‘Will I ever get up?’ It’s hard to live with… but I have no choice.”
His elder brother, who goes by the stage name of Patou Bass, is a popular rhythmic Cameroon dance music artist and bass guitarist. Nkoulou, known as “Julio” (one of his middle names) to those close, has featured in his music videos and his time in Italy has helped nurture his love for striking clothes and tattoos.
“He’s always well dressed and I’d call him a fashion freak who is always up to date with his dressing,” says Enow. “He’s a charming character, he’s a cool lad, close to his brother and other artists so he’s still a very popular guy in Cameroon.”
Nkoulou was discovered at the age of 14 playing football in the Cameroon capital Yaounde by scouts from the Kadji Sports Academy that had previously unearthed Samuel Eto’o, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Carlos Kameni. Nkoulou was from a lower-middle-class family and as a young child, wanted to be a policeman because he wanted to defend his city. He loved studying French at school but did not think much of maths.
His favourite dish — okok, a nutritious vegetable stew — gave him the energy to impress on trial and he won a scholarship.
“Yaounde is historically known as the top area for young footballing talent,” Olliver Kadji, the operations manager whose father Gilbert founded the academy, tells The Athletic. “It was clear from the start he was one of the top names in the group. He was highly rated locally but soon in the eyes of scouts around the world too.”
Including a determined Monaco. “They were on to him for a couple of years from the first time they saw him,” says Kadji. “They waited for him to be the right age and pushed for him to go.”
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After three years at the academy, Nkoulou signed a three-year deal with Monaco and moved to the principality with his mother before his 18th birthday to join the club’s B team.
“He’s not the strongest, tallest or fastest but he was very clean with the ball,” says Kadji. “Never too physical. He’s a very smart defender with his positioning and reading of the game, which set him apart.”
Nkoulou’s career quickly accelerated in 2008. He was the youngest member of the Cameroon squad at the Beijing Olympics that lost in the quarter-finals to a Brazil team captained by Ronaldinho. Then it was straight into first-team action for Monaco. Two months later, he was a full international, playing 90 minutes against South Africa aged 18 years, seven months and 23 days.
“Lots of the defenders were strong and athletic like Rigobert Song (Liverpool 1999-2000 and West Ham 2000-02), Lucien Mettomo (Manchester City 2001-03); very hard defenders almost like Sergio Ramos and Pepe,” says journalist Enow. “Where Nicolas differs is the composure. He’s got really cool nerves.
“He’s not the sort of defender who will rush into a tackle. He takes his time and reads the game well and it’s his ability to blend that composure and the mastery that he has of the game that makes him one of the top defenders.”
The 2010 World Cup was the next landmark and he played all three games against the Netherlands, Japan and Denmark. By the 2014 edition in Brazil, following Eto’o’s dispute with the Cameroon Football Federation, Nkoulou was appointed captain but his country again exited after the group stage.
At the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, Cameroon would go all the way to glory and Nkoulou played a significant role. In the final against Egypt, early substitute Nkoulou scored a powerful headed equaliser before Vincent Aboubakar’s spectacular winner in the 88th minute.
Nkoulou, who hadn’t played as much as he would have liked, called time on his international career.
“After winning the Africa Cup of Nations, I have a sense of having accomplished my duty for our country,” he said. “I have decided to take a break from the national team… I wish to concentrate on my career at club (level),” he said.
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But aged just 26 and with 72 caps and two goals to his name, he left the door slightly ajar. “A lion never dies,” he added, a reference to Cameroon’s nickname, the Indomitable Lions.
“Club success is one thing but national success puts you at the top of everything,” says Kadji. “That goal was the icing on the cake and rated him, after Eto’o, as probably the best player we’ve had.”
Since then, national team coaches — including former Netherlands international Clarence Seedorf — have tried to tempt Nkoulou out of retirement.
“Whenever you had Nkoulou at the back there was a certain level of reassurance for Cameroon fans,” says Enow. “He has an ability to control the tempo and a flashy side too. Often, you’ll expect a defender to balloon the ball out of the penalty box or put it out for a throw, that’s not Nkoulou.
“If he can he’ll dribble past the first attacker, dribble the second, get to the halfway line and then make a pass he will do that. That’s one of the reasons he seduced fans from this country and they’ve been clamouring for him to come back to the national team since 2017.”
Nkoulou describes himself as “introverted and reflective”, says he values “respect” over anything else and “the mental aspect” is the most important side of being a footballer.
He’s socially and politically aware too. His hero is Nelson Mandela and he dedicated the goal he scored for Torino against Parma last year to George Floyd by initially pointing to the sky then separating himself from celebrating team-mates, taking a knee and raising a clenched fist. “When I scored, I immediately thought of my brother Floyd, who is important to me,” he explained.
“He’s a good person. Giving, caring and quiet but in sports, he can show leadership even though he doesn’t speak a lot,” says Kadji. “He’s maintained himself very well health-wise and is serious about his profession and how he approaches the game.”
Testament to that is that Nkoulou, now 31, is still keen to learn, especially working under another experienced head coach in Claudio Ranieri.
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“He is the right one to help me continue my development and make me the player I want to become,” he said on arriving at Watford.
He has already impressed staff at the training ground and, if he continues to perform as he did at the Emirates, he is very likely to become Watford’s first choice.
Additional contributor: Mark Carey
(Top photos: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images, @nkoulou_n via Instagram)