Diarra should know. He lived there until he was 12, beginning a footballing journey that should reach its zenith today when the midfielder makes his Premiership debut for Chelsea at Sunderland.
“This is not in any way meant to reproach my parents, but my brothers, my sisters and I couldn’t have everything we wanted,” he says. “My coach had to buy my first football boots because my parents couldn’t afford them. Football was the one thing I had, so I had no choice: I had to make it. If I hadn’t been a footballer, I don’t know what I would have done. I didn’t dare ask myself that question. I had to succeed.”
The area avoided the worst of last year’s riots, but although his parents have moved to Mali, some Diarras remain.
“One is anxious for people while you’re away,” he admits, “but my brothers and sisters have known riots like that for ever, so they take it in their stride. I left quite early for football and when I go back I try not to be involved in things, but I see what’s going on.”
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Once the tough-tackling but intelligent gifts of the bricklayer’s son were spotted, he was evacuated to the more pastoral air of a French FA academy in Nantes, from where he was plucked by Le Havre. Last season Le Havre failed to gain promotion into Ligue 1, but Diarra’s maiden first-team stint was a revelation. Chelsea, rather than Arsenal, the more usual English plunderers of nascent Gallic talent, were among the pack who came knocking.
“I chose Chelsea for one reason: the coach,” he insists. “Jose Mourinho convinced me I had to play for them. I know that Chelsea have one of the best squads in the world, but here I’ll progress. I have a lot to learn off the field. I have to adapt to life in England and I have to learn English, but I’ll do it. Few 20-year-olds have this chance.”
Immediately Diarra was heralded as the “new Makelele”. The pair share a similar physique and an enforcer role. In fact the older Frenchman has become a mentor to the man who could be his eventual replacement. “Claude was definitely my favourite player,” Diarra acknowledges. “It made it easier that he helps me every day. If people call me the New Makelele, it’s a compliment, but Claude is Claude and I am myself.”
Diarra made his first start for Chelsea against Huddersfield last weekend, playing alongside Joe Cole, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Shaun Wright-Phillips in midfield. Mourinho singled out just one of the four afterwards. “Diarra was my best player,” the manager said. “He has a big personality with a bit of Makelele defensively and a bit of Michael Essien on the ball. He will definitely be in my 16 at Sunderland. We have to reward that performance.”
Naturally, the streetwise urchin in Diarra refuses to take his ascension into the elite of the Premiership for granted. “We’ll know when the squad’s picked, won’t we?” he says. Then he smiles, the smile of one who knows everything will turn out just fine.