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He speaks four languages, has scored goals all across Europe and could have been a fashion designer... here's why Bony is Swansea's Daddy Cool
By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 22:38, 10 January 2014 | UPDATED: 01:15, 11 January 2014
The noise increases each time Wilfried Bony brings his fist down on the table. The Swansea City striker with the leopardprint hat and matching shoes is explaining why he is not the laid-back person some people think he is.
'I have to be in control,' he says. 'I must. It is very important.' He brings his fist down. 'I am a hard person - I am not an easy guy. I want always to be in control, everything I do in football and outside.
'At the end of the season I want to do this, after next season I want to do that. Goals, objectives. I know who can help me, who can't help me. The people who can help, from the beginning I talk to them. "I want that and that - you have to help me. And if you help me, I help you".'
He brings his fist down again. It's time to talk about headers. This is his first one-on-one interview with a British newspaper and Bony, 25, is still grinning about his match-winning header against Manchester United in the FA Cup last Sunday.
Headed goals are important to him and he wants another against United in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday.
'I am quite an intelligent guy,' he says. 'I talk with my team-mates, my friends. They know I am strong and that if they put it in the right place I will get there. I am not a running player, running right and left.
'I like to use my power. Wherever we go, in the disco or anywhere, I am always talking about this every day. I always tell my friends - Roland Lamah, (Wayne) Routledge, Jonathan de Guzman - if you have time to put in a cross do it because you know I am good with my head. You don't have to be in the box, give me the ball.
'If I head the ball one time it can be a goal. I try to be there in the right place. If I am not there, it is my mistake.'
Bony doesn't break eye-contact during this speech. He is 91kg of intensity and self-assurance, a man who 'wears whatever I want to wear' - he says he would have been a fashion designer if not a footballer - and whose thighs are each 'as wide as mine together', in the words of Swansea goalkeeper Michel Vorm.
Vorm talks of a 'beast', a man for whom everything is large, including that £12million fee that until recently was considered a little on the high side. 'He sneezed this morning and the noise - wow,' Vorm said.
'His shot is the hardest thing I have felt. He is a good guy, everyone likes him, but he will give you a play punch in the arm and it really hurts.'
The pain is being felt elsewhere. He scored twice in defeat against Manchester City - 'his best game for Swansea,' said boss Michael Laudrup - and followed it with the winner against United.
He now has 13 for the season - six in the league - and people are starting to get over some of early reservations about his form, fitness and the fact Laudrup had other targets before signing him.
'I have absolute belief in myself,' he says. His friend Didier Drogba sends him messages on his Blackberry to reinforce the message.
Support: Bony has been encouraged by his countryman Didier Drogba
Support: Bony has been encouraged by his countryman Didier Drogba
'I am not 100 per cent yet. People will see the best is yet to come,' he adds. Bony grew up as the eldest of three children in the Plateau area of Abidjan, in the south of the Ivory Coast. His father was a teacher and his mother, a black be l t in judo, worked in administration.
'They were,' he says, 'not very poor but not rich. My parents always had jobs.' Bony's job, in the eyes of his father, should not have been in football.
'He wanted me to continue in school,' he says. 'He paid for me to go to this school for a year but I said, "I don't want that, I want to play football so don't pay anything".
'He would say, "Go to school and after that you can play. There are other people, like doctors, who play football".
But I said, "Dad, no. Everyone has a destiny". He said, "I understand that but this is your problem now". Man, he went ******* crazy.
'But my mum helped me. She bought me boots, black boots, because I used to play without shoes. I used to hurt my feet.'
Bony left the school after two months, aged 14, and enrolled in a football academy run by Cyrille Domoraud, the ex-Ivory Coast defender who played for Inter and AC Milan. 'I used to be a defender,' Bony says.
'Then one game our forward got injured, I went up front, scored twice and the coach said, "You're not a stopper any more". In 2006, aged 17, he joined his first professional club, Issia Wazi in the Ivory Coast, and a few months later was invited for a trial at Rafa Benitez's Liverpool.
Just getting started: Bony says the Premier League is still to see the best of him this season
Just getting started: Bony says the Premier League is still to see the best of him this season
'It was my first time abroad. Steven Gerrard - he was the best. They said I was quite good but young. They said, "OK, you can train and we will see you again, see if you are improving and then maybe we'll sign you".
'It was good. I went back to the Ivory Coast to train then got a letter from Sparta Prague, and I could play a minimum of 10 games there which would be good. Games are the most important thing. I got there and saw snow. I was thinking, "What the **** is that?" '
But Bony learnt to ski and now speaks fluent Czech. He also speaks French and English fluently and can get by in Dutch - but he has also learnt the art of scoring.
'You must study the weakness of a defence,' he says. He scored 22 goals in 59 games, then moved to Vitesse Arnhem in 2011, where in two years he scored an astonishing 51 in 69. It's where Daddy Cool, the Boney M song, first started being played.
'I had no idea what this music was and then I looked it up on YouTube,' he says. 'I got them to play it for me every time I entered the pitch and every time I scored.' He heard it a lot and still does at the Liberty Stadium.
'I always plan for the future,' he says. 'I talk about this with Didier a lot. Last year, in Holland, he told me to be in the top five in Europe for goals.
On the up: Bony has scored 13 goals already this season, his first in English football
On the up: Bony has scored 13 goals already this season, his first in English football
'Now it is more tough but he said, "Don't let anyone destroy your objectives".
'My objective is 20 goals with Swansea this season, then the World Cup and in the future I want to play the Champions League.'
He stops banging his fist and grins. 'No-one will destroy my objectives.'
By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 22:38, 10 January 2014 | UPDATED: 01:15, 11 January 2014
The noise increases each time Wilfried Bony brings his fist down on the table. The Swansea City striker with the leopardprint hat and matching shoes is explaining why he is not the laid-back person some people think he is.
'I have to be in control,' he says. 'I must. It is very important.' He brings his fist down. 'I am a hard person - I am not an easy guy. I want always to be in control, everything I do in football and outside.
'At the end of the season I want to do this, after next season I want to do that. Goals, objectives. I know who can help me, who can't help me. The people who can help, from the beginning I talk to them. "I want that and that - you have to help me. And if you help me, I help you".'
He brings his fist down again. It's time to talk about headers. This is his first one-on-one interview with a British newspaper and Bony, 25, is still grinning about his match-winning header against Manchester United in the FA Cup last Sunday.
Headed goals are important to him and he wants another against United in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday.
'I am quite an intelligent guy,' he says. 'I talk with my team-mates, my friends. They know I am strong and that if they put it in the right place I will get there. I am not a running player, running right and left.
'I like to use my power. Wherever we go, in the disco or anywhere, I am always talking about this every day. I always tell my friends - Roland Lamah, (Wayne) Routledge, Jonathan de Guzman - if you have time to put in a cross do it because you know I am good with my head. You don't have to be in the box, give me the ball.
'If I head the ball one time it can be a goal. I try to be there in the right place. If I am not there, it is my mistake.'
Bony doesn't break eye-contact during this speech. He is 91kg of intensity and self-assurance, a man who 'wears whatever I want to wear' - he says he would have been a fashion designer if not a footballer - and whose thighs are each 'as wide as mine together', in the words of Swansea goalkeeper Michel Vorm.
Vorm talks of a 'beast', a man for whom everything is large, including that £12million fee that until recently was considered a little on the high side. 'He sneezed this morning and the noise - wow,' Vorm said.
'His shot is the hardest thing I have felt. He is a good guy, everyone likes him, but he will give you a play punch in the arm and it really hurts.'
The pain is being felt elsewhere. He scored twice in defeat against Manchester City - 'his best game for Swansea,' said boss Michael Laudrup - and followed it with the winner against United.
He now has 13 for the season - six in the league - and people are starting to get over some of early reservations about his form, fitness and the fact Laudrup had other targets before signing him.
'I have absolute belief in myself,' he says. His friend Didier Drogba sends him messages on his Blackberry to reinforce the message.
Support: Bony has been encouraged by his countryman Didier Drogba
Support: Bony has been encouraged by his countryman Didier Drogba
'I am not 100 per cent yet. People will see the best is yet to come,' he adds. Bony grew up as the eldest of three children in the Plateau area of Abidjan, in the south of the Ivory Coast. His father was a teacher and his mother, a black be l t in judo, worked in administration.
'They were,' he says, 'not very poor but not rich. My parents always had jobs.' Bony's job, in the eyes of his father, should not have been in football.
'He wanted me to continue in school,' he says. 'He paid for me to go to this school for a year but I said, "I don't want that, I want to play football so don't pay anything".
'He would say, "Go to school and after that you can play. There are other people, like doctors, who play football".
But I said, "Dad, no. Everyone has a destiny". He said, "I understand that but this is your problem now". Man, he went ******* crazy.
'But my mum helped me. She bought me boots, black boots, because I used to play without shoes. I used to hurt my feet.'
Bony left the school after two months, aged 14, and enrolled in a football academy run by Cyrille Domoraud, the ex-Ivory Coast defender who played for Inter and AC Milan. 'I used to be a defender,' Bony says.
'Then one game our forward got injured, I went up front, scored twice and the coach said, "You're not a stopper any more". In 2006, aged 17, he joined his first professional club, Issia Wazi in the Ivory Coast, and a few months later was invited for a trial at Rafa Benitez's Liverpool.
Just getting started: Bony says the Premier League is still to see the best of him this season
Just getting started: Bony says the Premier League is still to see the best of him this season
'It was my first time abroad. Steven Gerrard - he was the best. They said I was quite good but young. They said, "OK, you can train and we will see you again, see if you are improving and then maybe we'll sign you".
'It was good. I went back to the Ivory Coast to train then got a letter from Sparta Prague, and I could play a minimum of 10 games there which would be good. Games are the most important thing. I got there and saw snow. I was thinking, "What the **** is that?" '
But Bony learnt to ski and now speaks fluent Czech. He also speaks French and English fluently and can get by in Dutch - but he has also learnt the art of scoring.
'You must study the weakness of a defence,' he says. He scored 22 goals in 59 games, then moved to Vitesse Arnhem in 2011, where in two years he scored an astonishing 51 in 69. It's where Daddy Cool, the Boney M song, first started being played.
'I had no idea what this music was and then I looked it up on YouTube,' he says. 'I got them to play it for me every time I entered the pitch and every time I scored.' He heard it a lot and still does at the Liberty Stadium.
'I always plan for the future,' he says. 'I talk about this with Didier a lot. Last year, in Holland, he told me to be in the top five in Europe for goals.
On the up: Bony has scored 13 goals already this season, his first in English football
On the up: Bony has scored 13 goals already this season, his first in English football
'Now it is more tough but he said, "Don't let anyone destroy your objectives".
'My objective is 20 goals with Swansea this season, then the World Cup and in the future I want to play the Champions League.'
He stops banging his fist and grins. 'No-one will destroy my objectives.'