Manchester City's Rabbi Matondo: The Cardiff kid who's grown up to be the fastest player at one of the world's biggest clubs
"Cardiff was very, very important to my career. I'll always have a place for Cardiff in my heart.
By Tom Coleman
Tuesday 9th October 2018
A few years ago, taxi drivers warned each other not to go to this part of Cardiff, citing a couple of attacks by "gangs" on their cabs as they went to pick up fares.
It's also the second most expensive part of the city to insure your car, according to a recent study .
Tremorfa's reputation does precede it, though, truth be told, it's no worse than many other parts of Cardiff. Certainly, its crime figures are comparable to lots of other parts of the city .
Sandwiched between a web of mid-20th century housing on one side and a relatively new housing development on the other is Tremorfa Park. A large steelworks looms on the horizon and, not too far away, the Rhymney river empties into the Bristol Channel.
It's this patch of green - where football pitches of various sizes are marked into the grass - that could be the starting point for a Welsh footballing success story that may yet rank among the very best.
This is where Rabbi Matondo first fell in love with the game, going there with his dad and his brothers and learning the game while playing against older boys.
And while he is now surrounded by the astonishing riches of Manchester City Football Club - which won the Premier League with ease last year and also leads the way this season - Matondo credits his childhood with making him the person and the player he is.
"Tremorfa's not the best of areas, but it's passionate about football," he says.
"Growing up there helped a lot in me becoming who I am today and the way I play. It's suited to my style. I've always liked to run with the ball. Going out in the park and seeing other people, playing against boys who were older, bigger and strong than me has helped."
He is only 18 and yet to play a single minute of first team football (unsurprising given the wealth of talent at Manchester City's disposal) but Matondo, a forward, is creating a heck of a stir and is being heavily touted as the latest in a growing line of young Welsh talent.
Those at the Cardiff City academy believed him to be the most exciting player to emerge from their set-up since Aaron Ramsey, and the hype has continued to build ever since.
This week has seen him endure a setback, with injury causing him to be withdrawn from the Wales under-21s squad for the games with Romania and Switzerland, but those in the know believe he's nevertheless close to featuring in Ryan Giggs's first team plans.
The forward has already netted seven goals in 10 games at under-23s level for Manchester City this season, but it was an otherwise meaningless training exercise that really catapulted the youngster into the limelight.
In speed tests, the youngster was found to be the fastest player on the books at a club that boasts the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kyle Walker and Leroy Sane.
It was always going to make people sit up and take notice, but Matondo himself isn't one to brag.
"We did fitness tests and obviously we had to do 20m sprints and other things as well," he says.
"It turned out my time was the fastest in the academy, and it later came out that it was the fastest in the whole club.
"I'm not too sure about that personally, but that's what they said, and as you know there's some really fast players at Manchester City.
"I'm not really bothered by it, but of course everyone's going to talk about it, if it is true. There's nothing I can do about that."
He may downplay it, but the incident clearly made an impression on coach Pep Guardiola, who later chose to include the youngster in City's pre-season schedule, strengthening his determination to reach the top.
"For me he's the best manager in the world, and to even be on the same pitch as him is an honour in itself," says Matondo of Guardiola, who has won multiple league titles in Spain, Germany and England, as well as the Champions League twice.
"I'm very thankful for getting the chance to witness first hand how he manages the team and how he goes about things."
The respect for one of the game's great tactical masterminds is clear, but the Catalan has a long way to go before he usurps the real hero of Rabbi's career so far.
"If it wasn't for my dad I definitely wouldn't be where I am today," he says proudly.
"Around the age of three or four my dad used to take me, my brothers and a few of the boys that came from my street. We used to go up the park and have little games.
"I remember we used to go up there every day during the summers and there would be 30-40 players, all mixing in and creating teams and just loved playing football.
"I've loved football since then, really."
Matondo's father, Dada, played football for several clubs in his native Congo, and has taken a leading role in a family heavily influenced by the beautiful game.
Rabbi's brother Cedrick was once on the books at Cardiff and Newport County, while younger sibling Japhet is currently turning out for the Bluebirds at under-13 level.
It's a footballing dynasty borne out of hard work, perseverance and determination.
"Sport has always been that escape for kids growing up [in Tremorfa] or other areas of Cardiff that are not so good, especially those who aren't a big fan of school," he says.
"I was never a big fan of school, but I made sure that I worked hard to get to where I wanted to be in football."
He may claim not to have enjoyed school, but those at Llanishen High - which also has world record-breaking Olympic champion cyclist Elinor Barker amongst its sporting success stories - remember him fondly.
Rabbi's former PE teacher Harry Trelawny says: "He joined us in year 9 and he was always a larger than life character, just constantly bubbling.
"He was already on the books at Cardiff City and was already highly thought of, but the thing we loved about Rabbi was that he'd get involved in everything.
"Every week he'd put himself forward to play rugby, but we'd never let him because we knew we had to wrap him up in cotton wool a little bit because of his football.
"I always remember, when we were playing our inter-form rugby championship, Rabbi was actually in line to play for England under-15s against Mexico a few days later, and he was literally begging us to play.
"A man went down and he ran on without us looking, made a 40-yard run and was on the end of massive tackle at the end of it. He got up with a smile on his face. That was how he was."
The fastest footballers in the Premier League
1. Leroy Sane (Man City)
2. Patrick van Aanholt (Crystal Palace)
3. Moussa Sissoko (Tottenham)
4. Theo Walcott (Everton)
5. Kyle Walker (Man City)
6. Antonio Rudiger (Chelsea)
7. Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace)
8. Oliver Burke (West Brom)
9. Kiko Femenia (Watford)
10.Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal)
11. Jamie Vardy (Leicester)
12. DeAndre Yedlin (Newcastle)
13. Hector Bellerin (Aresnal)
14. Raheem Sterling (Man City)
15. Kurt Zouma (Everton)
16. Joshua King (Bournemouth)
17. Mohammed Salah (Liverpool)
18. Sadio Mane (Liverpool)
19. Jordon Ibe (Bournemouth)
20. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Liverpool)
Rabbi is still eligible to play for England, and accepts it's likely there'll be plenty of questions about his allegiances to come - much in the same way as current young Welsh stars Ben Woodburn and Ethan Ampadu.
However, for him there's no debate.
"I feel Welsh," he says confidently.
"I'm really happy and honoured to say that I'm Welsh. I'm so happy to see the other youngsters doing so well at the moment. It motivates me too because I remember myself playing with these players during the younger age groups in the Wales set-up, and now they've gone on to do so well and all fully deserve their first team call-ups.
"I'm really happy and obviously it inspires me to push to their level and get into the Wales first team."
Such affection for Wales is hardly surprising, given that his connection with his adopted home city of Cardiff still burns as strong as ever.
Rabbi Matondo grew up playing football in a Cardiff park and is now hoping to play for the senior Wales and Manchester City sides
Leaving everything he knew behind proved a tough experience for someone so young, but it proved a necessary sacrifice.
"It was hard being here on my own at the age of 15/16, without my parents, without my friends and I'd just left them behind.
"But I'm happy I made the move to go up. I think I needed that in my life. Everything before felt so comfortable at Cardiff.
"I was just living at home, going to school, seeing my friends. My parents were there - everyone was there for me.
"Cardiff was very, very important to my career. I'll always have a place for Cardiff in my heart.
"But for me, I want to be the best player I can be and I will make any sacrifice to be the best.
"I want to make my parents happy, my family happy, people around me happy and, indeed, Wales happy."
If Rabbi goes on to fulfill even half of the potential he's been tipped to achieve, making Wales happy shouldn't be too much of a problem, although the man himself says such hype is nothing more than backround noise at this stage.
"I hear things, I see things, people speak to me about things," he adds.
"But I know that until I get that call-up and until I hear it from the gaffer then I'm not really fussed about what people have to say too much.
"I'm just taking it step by step and whatever happens, happens, but I don't let it distract me."
If things keep going the way they are, those voices are going to get very hard to ignore.
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