Saido Berahino was born on the 4th of August 1993 in Bujumbura, Burundi and played football as a child with a ball of plastic bags tied up with laces. After his father died in the Civil War, Saido fled his native Burundi alone as a child, receiving political asylum in England when he joined his mother and family in Newtown, Birmingham. Skilled in several sports, the youngster started to stand out at school and, above all, on the football pitch, and joined the West Bromwich Albion Centre of Excellence in 2004 at under-12 level from inner-city youth club Phoenix United, and turned professional seven years later. Academy Head of Recruitment at West Brom, Steve Hopcroft, told the Telegraph in 2014, "He improved year after year, we will always remember him scoring four goals for the Under-15s in a game up at Liverpool. All the other academy teams would always talk about Saido after games." He didn’t make his senior debut for the club until he'd made a couple of eye-catching loan spells at Northampton and Brentford in Leagues 2 and 1 respectively. However, when he did break into the West Bromwich Albion first team in the 2013-2014 season he became a regular and was viewed as hot property. Having netted a hat-trick against Newport in the League Cup second round, he was included in Gareth Southgate's first squad as England under-21 boss and scored on his debut in a 1-0 win over Moldova. If his reputation wasn’t already on a rapid rise, it was about to soar with his first Premier League goal coming against reigning champions, Manchester United, at Old Trafford. The striker bagged nine goals in all competitions that season before a breath-taking 2014-15 campaign saw him net 20 times, 14 of those coming in the Premier League. With a strike rate like that everyone wondered how far the young forward could go and – more immediately – which top club would take a chance on him as he was seen by many as the future of England’s strike force. Transfer gossip saw Berahino linked with a January move to Liverpool, with Tottenham also reportedly willing to part with considerable cash in order to secure his signature. Saido’s purple patch in front of goal was too appeasing for Hodgson to resist, and the striker received his first senior England call-up for the November fixtures against Slovenia and Scotland. "It’s up to Saido to show he can make this step up from his own level, under-21, to the senior level." Berahino’s former West Brom boss said – but the opportunity never arose. A couple of weeks after that international break, it emerged that Berahino had been arrested for drink-driving the month before. Attitude issues and rumoured unrest saw West Brom scrap plans to give Berahino a new contract, accepting that they’d have to sell him on in the summer but, when Tottenham came calling, their bids were rejected, prompting fury from the player himself. When he was denied a move to Spurs on deadline day, Berahino threatened to strike. Spurs had famously put in a number of bids for the England youth international that were rejected by the club in the summer of 2015. The fourth and final rejected bid had come on transfer deadline day which famously led to a twitter outburst from the player, in which he stated that he would never play for the club again under chairman Jeremy Peace. Unsurprisingly he was fined for those comments, and later apologised, but that season turned out to be sporadic at best for the once flying forward. Well before the angry incidents of the 1st of September 2015, colleagues had spotted a concerning trait in Berahino's make-up that meant he was easily distracted and knocked off course by a little success or a minor setback. Having already been handed the first of two drink-driving convictions in January 2015, in September came a game at Crystal Palace that further alienated team-mates. Having been substituted by Tony Pulis at half-time with the game goalless, Berahino put on his headphones during a half-time team-talk and left the stadium during the second half as his colleagues lost 2-0. Football is littered with sliding doors moments, and his botched transfer to Tottenham Hotspur would have serious repercussions on a promising career.
In January 2017, more than 10 months after his last Premier League goal, a move to fellow Premier League side Stoke City came about, a move worth £12million, as the forward admitted he had lost his way at his previous club. There was no resurgence there though, and with Stoke hurtling towards relegation under Mark Hughes, Berahino was among a group of training-ground mavericks who angered team-mates with their antics. Former England defender Glen Johnson recalled, "He had the wrong mentality and attitude from day one and for whatever reason, when he was at Stoke, he was going against the grain." Sadly top form never returned and Stoke reached a settlement with Berahino to cancel the final three years of his contract. He left having scored just three league goals in 51 appearances and after just one season with Sheffield Wednesday the 29-year old was released by them. He now plays for Cypriot First Division club AEL Limassol and is captain of the Burundi national team.
Those who saw a young Berahino making his way through the ranks at Albion and with England can appreciate the scale of the talent that went unfulfilled. England manager Gareth Southgate recognised it, Manchester United recognised it and his team-mates recognised it.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/04/footballs-nearly-men-ravel-morrison.html
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