French footballer Yoan Mollo, playing as an extreme attacking midfielder, has changed a lot of clubs during his career. He also played in the Russian championship - in the teams "Wings of the Soviets" and "Zenith". At the moment, Mollo is a player of the Greek Panathinaikos.
Early years and early successes
Ioan Mollo was born in 1989 in Mortigue, a small town near Marseille. As a child, he played various sports (basketball, judo, karate, etc.), but eventually chose football. At the age of fourteen he was taken to the Academy of the Monaco Club. Ioan's debut as a professional footballer took place at the same club on October 18, 2008. In total, in the seasons 2008/2009 and 2009/2010, Mollo played 42 matches for the Monegasques and became the author of 2 goals.
It is also worth noting that at the same time, Ioan was a member of the French youth team, where his teammates were such future famous players as Antoine Griezman and Moussa Sissoko. But Ioan was never involved in the main national team.
In 2010, Mollo started playing for the Kan club. The move to this club was dictated by the desire to remain in the main football league of France - Ligue 1 (the Monegasques dropped out of it). As a result, the footballer played 35 games for Kan.
Ioan Mollo in "Granada", "Nancy" and "Saint-Etienne"
In the summer of 2011, Mollo decided to try his hand at Spanish football and signed a contract with the Granada club. But here he could not become a base player and came out only as a substitute.
In Granada, Mollo stayed only for six months. Already at the beginning of 2012 he became a player of the French Nancy, and showed himself quite well here.
In the summer of 2012, the management of "Nancy" decided to keep Mollo in its composition. And already in the opening match of the 2012/2013 season for Nancy, Mollo showed what he is capable of. He scored a goal into the goal net of the club "Brest", which provided the team with a win and three points. And that was, in fact, Nancy's only victory in the first round of the regular season. For the entire 2012, Ioan played 18 games for this team in the championship and in the League Cup.
However, then the footballer was loaned to Saint-Etienne. In total, in the seasons 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, Mollo played 50 matches for Saint-Etienne and scored 5 goals.
Transfer to "Wings of the Soviets" and further biography
In August 2015, Mollot was transferred by the management of Saint-Etienne for a year to Wings of the Soviets. And here he immediately gained a foothold in the main team.
On August 29, 2015, in the game against Zenit St. Petersburg (this was his second appearance on the field for Wings), Mollo made 3 assists. This brought the Samarans a victory - 3: 1. In total, in the 2015/2016 season, Mollo took part in 23 games and gave 6 brilliant assists. At the end of the season, he even became one of the best in the Premier League in terms of this indicator. And this, of course, allowed him to earn the love and respect of the fans.
In the offseason, Mollo signed a new contract with the Samara club. And he opened the scoring for his goals in the Krylia on October 1, 2016 - he managed to send the ball into the goal of Anji Makhachkala with a beautiful shot.
In the Samara team, the midfielder did a really huge amount of work on the field. And at some point, he attracted attention from the top clubs of the RFPL. As a result, on January 10, 2017, Ioan Mollo moved to Zenit for 3 million euros. The contract with the St. Petersburg club was designed for a period of 3, 5 years.
At the beginning of the 2017/2018 season, Mollo was sent to the Zenit-2 farm club.
On July 26, 2017, he committed a very unseemly act. During the break after the first half in the match with Siberia, he showed the stands, where the fans of Zenit-2 were sitting, an indecent gesture. For this trick, the RFU disqualified Mollo for 2 matches, and also fined 20 thousand rubles.
Mollo (primarily for financial reasons) did not want to leave the St. Petersburg club before his contract ended. However, on August 30, 2017, this contract was still terminated.
Mollo spent the next season at Fulham, which plays in the English Championship. Here he played until January 30, 2018.
After that, it was announced that Ioan was returning to Wings of the Soviets. Many Samara fans took this news positively. But for the whole of 2018, Mollo, due to an injury, was able to participate in only 7 matches. And in these matches nothing special was noted.
At the beginning of 2019, after the New Year holidays, Ioan Mollo left Wings of the Soviets without any monetary compensation.
On January 28, 2019, he became a midfielder for Sochaux, a club from the French Ligue 2. And on July 25, 2019, it was reported that Mollo had signed a two-year contract with the Greek Panathinaikos.
Interesting facts about Ioana Mollo
- Joan's cousin André-Pierre Gignac has also had an excellent football career. At Euro 2016, Gignac even played for the French national team.
- In the 2015/2016 season, Ioan played in unusual boots with drawings of comic book heroes - Batman and Joker. Another important part of his style during this time was the mohawk hairstyle.
- In September 2015, Ioan Mollo presented the gardener of the Wings of the Soviets club with an exclusive gem. And this is not his only such act. Once he paid bonuses from his own money to 50 employees of the Samara stadium "Metallurg" for the fact that they prepared the lawn well for the match.
