RB Leipzig and Ivory Coast star Yan Diomande opens up about the devastating loss of his sister

In an article for The Players' Tribune, RB Leipzig and Ivory Coast winger Yan Diomande has opened up on the loss of his sister and the grief that has followed.

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RB Leipzig and Ivory Coast star Yan Diomande has written an emotional piece for The Players’ Tribune addressed to his late sister Roxane, who died aged just 15.

Before moving to Leipzig, Diomande played for Leganés. A few weeks after making his debut for the Spanish side, he received a phone call out of nowhere from Ivory Coast informing him that his sister had died after someone had put something in her drink at a party.

“I don’t even think I shed a tear the day they told me that you were gone. I was just in shock,” Diomande recalled in the article, which is directed at his late sister.

"It was a few weeks after I made my debut for Leganés. Who makes their debut at 18 against Real Madrid? It was too crazy. It was a dream. 

“And then it was a nightmare. Someone kept calling me from back home. I was annoyed. I didn’t understand why they kept calling me,” added Diomande, who received the painful news after eventually picking up the phone.

Diomande also wrote that since his sister’s death, he has felt “blank”.

“That was back when I used to have emotions. Now, I don’t feel anything. It’s like I’m not even human. Since you died, I’m just blank,” the 19-year-old stated.

“I never got any answers. I don’t know if I want to know why. Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it’s just something that happens in our country. Maybe I could have protected you. I don’t know.”

Diomande is driven by the desire to prove that his sister was right when she told everyone he could one day become the best footballer in the world.

“I try to trust God’s plan. It’s all I can do. I don’t try to forget, because I know I won’t forget. All I can do is use the pain to work harder, and to do everything we dreamed about," he wrote, adding:

"I wrote this because I can’t speak about it. I wrote this because I want you to know that I will make sure that you live on. I will make sure that everybody knows your name. The whole world. 

“Everything I do on a football pitch, it’s for you."