If Lorient managed to climb onto the Ligue 1 podium this autumn, it is partly thanks to the solidity and reminders of this 28-year-old goalkeeper, born in Cameroon and raised in Switzerland from the age of 6.
“He really got into the team dynamic”, greets Regis Le Bris. “Then there is obviously his individual performance in the goalkeeping position. He took up the challenge from the start”.
“He brings a kind of composure and consistency to his performances. And at the same time, he is our 11th player to start the game. It is very nice to build a team to feel that our goalkeeper can contribute to ball excursions”, adds the coach.
Another good pick for the summer, the Tunisian defender Montassar Talbi quickly befriended Mvogo and appreciates his presence on the court.
“Control and Trust”
“He has a lot of experience, which also brings a lot of composure, and a certain control and confidence that he transfers to the whole team. And his ability to play short or long, that pleases any defender. We know that ” we have a goalkeeper that we can play with and get the ball out,’ he explains.
However, it was not a foregone conclusion. Educated at the Young Boys of Bern, regularly selected in every category of youth in the Swiss team, Yvon Mvogo made his professional debut as a 19-year-old in Bern and quickly established himself as a starter.
But in 2017 he made the choice to go to Leipzig, with the hope of displacing the Hungarian Peter Gulasci there. Waste of time: he has struggled for three years starved of playing time.
A two-season loan to PSV Eindhoven has given him some breathing room, although he still spent much of the 2020-2021 season on the bench.
Meanwhile, the question of goalkeepers tore Lorient apart, between Paul Nardi, the goalkeeper of the comeback in 2020, not always at the level of L1, and Matthieu Dreyer, with not necessarily decisive interims.
Now Dreyer and Nardi are gone and the Lorient goalkeepers are training in a climate of healthy competition and mutual help, according to Le Bris.
“Guardian Pool”
It would be the same within the small talented group of candidates for the succession – in the longer term – of Yann Sommer (Mönchengladbach) in the Swiss cages.
With Jonas Omlin (Montpellier), Gregor Kobel (Dortmund) and David von Ballmoos (Bern), the Swiss coach Murat Yakin is spoiled for choice and Mvogo, who has four choices since 2018 and many calls as N.3, is not going to make it easy for him.
However, Sommer and Omlin each currently have problems with an ankle. And an injury sidelined Kobel for a month in September-October.
The opportunity for Mvogo to secure his place at the WCor even move up the hierarchy when Switzerland have to face… their home country Cameroon at the end of November?
“He doesn’t care because he maintains the mindset of the pool of goalkeepers and it’s not about wishing for other people’s misfortune,” assures Le Bris.
According to the coach, it is for Mvogo “to focus on his own performance, to be the best goalkeeper possible, to be at his peak when the list is announced. “we are all aiming together. And from this point of view, he takes up the gauntlet”.