A little incentive never hurt anyone, especially when there’s a shiny price tag of €800 attached to it. This was evident when Jose Mourinho, the head coach of Roma, came good on his promise and bought new boots for Felix Afena-Gyan after he scored a sensational 2-0 victory over Genoa in Serie A, moving them to fifth place in the league.

The 18-year-old player who joined the club’s youth side in January made his way into the first team in no time.

He arrived as a 75th-minute substitute, at 0-0 and broke the deadlock. The first goal was scored in the 82nd minute as he slotted a low-driving effort into the bottom corner. In stoppage time, the Ghanaian’s thrilling effort from long-range saw the ball cruise past Genoa goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu into the top corner.

An ecstatic Mourihno said, “I had promised to buy Felix the shoes he really likes, which are really expensive, they cost €800, as he ran over and told me not to forget! Tomorrow morning, the first thing I do is buy him the boots”. Afena-Gyan did a little celebratory dance as he wore the Balenciagas.

 “You get these kids now who think they know everything, but he is humble and you can sense he just absorbs all this information from everyone around him. That’s fantastic. What impressed me the most was his cool head in front of the goal. If he is not in terms of technique fantastic, he does have a strong mentality,” the ex-Chelsea coach said of the wunderkind.

Image credit: Serie A, @ohenegyanfelix9