Never Fold

One day you’re folding clothes at a ZARA in France, and the next, you’re starting for the Red Bulls in New York. 

“It was tough because it was a clothing store, so we were always very busy. I was there for two months, and then I got an email asking me if I wanted to try out to go to MLS.”

While ZARA was a quick pit stop on his path to the pros, Florian Valot’s career has been riddled with setbacks, but he’s always found a way to overcome them. 

Before his short stint at ZARA, Valot had a decorated youth career in France for clubs like PSG and AS Monaco. But it all began in the suburbs of Paris at the age of six. 

“From really early on, I wanted to be a professional football player. The ‘98 World Cup happened when I was six, and that’s when I started playing.”

With France winning that World Cup at home, Valot immediately fell in love with soccer. From playing in the streets of Paris or at school, the ball was always at his feet. By the age of 12, Valot was already making a name for himself. He was invited to an exclusive tryout for Clairefontaine, the most prestigious youth academy in France run by the French Football Federation (FFF). 

Unfortunately for Valot, his dream of playing at Clairefontaine was cut before it even began. Valot and his family moved to Scotland, and he was unable to take part in the exclusive tryouts. Despite missing out on that chance, though, Scotland brought new opportunities for Valot. 

“It was kind of tough having to leave my best friends and everything. But at the same time, it was a really fun experience because I got to play British football, which is very physical. I was scoring a lot of goals, and that is when I started getting the attention of different professional teams. I practiced with the Rangers, I went to Aston Villa for tryouts, Chelsea was watching me, and again, the same thing happened as when I left France.”

Valot’s parents had to return to France, and Valot missed the chance to join Aberdeen Academy, one of the best in Scotland. 

Despite missing yet another opportunity to kickstart his dreams of going pro, Valot’s fortunes would change on his return to France. Valot joined his home club, playing in the lower division, before participating in tryouts to play for his department in a regional tournament. He finished as the third overall best player in the tournament. 

“From there, I got a lot of offers from academies in France and one or two in England as well. My dad was the one who took the decision to send me to the PSG Academy because it was 15 minutes away from home.” 

Looking back at his experience joining PSG at the age of 14, Valot said, “ PSG was a challenging environment. All the best players are there, and not all were from the same background as myself. I'm from a family that’s well-off, but those kids were often from rough parts of the suburbs in Paris. And those guys are athletes. They're hungry. They know they have to do well and succeed because that's all they have. That's all they dream about.”

After three years at PSG, Valot was unable to secure a contract with the club, but on his last match for PSG, he caught the eye of AS Monaco scouts, who instantly offered him a deal with their youth side. 

While getting an offer from AS Monaco helped Valot keep his professional aspirations alive, the transition to living far from home was not an easy one. 

“At 15, I left home to go to the PSG Academy, which was only 15 minutes away from where I lived. Now I was going down to the southeast of France, really far away from my family. This time I'm 17, living by myself. It was difficult because you have days where everything is not going well. There were days I would be calling my parents crying because I didn’t know what I was doing.”

In Monaco, Valot would train multiple times a day while still attending high school and taking classes at a local college. 

“Three times a week, I would go to the school on the ‘rocher’ of Monaco. I would go there, show up, do my classes, and then just go back to practice. It was intense. I had really bad grades. The teachers were not happy with me because I was not doing well enough. The school pride in excellence.”

Outside of the classroom, though, Valot and his teammates at AS Monaco were shining bright. With players like Yannik Carrasco (Atletico Madrid), Layvin Kurzawa (PSG), Nampalys Mendy (Leicester City), and Valot, the AS Monaco U-19s were able to win the Coupe Gambardella -- the most prestigious youth cup in the country -- at the Stade de France in front of 40 thousand people. 

“It was very special. Everything went so fast. I don't remember a lot besides just celebrating the win and lifting the trophy. We played a couple of hours before the French Cup Final while the stadium was filling up, and by the end, there were like 40,000 people. It was surreal.”

With a cup win under his belt and vast experience playing for the youth team, Valot was poised to make a jump to the first team. At the time, Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev had just bought AS Monaco ahead of their jump to Ligue 1, and the club verbally offered Valot his first professional contract. 

Unfortunately for Valot, the deal fell through, and he was left without a contract. It seemed as if that was the end of the road for his soccer career.

“I went back home, and it was tough to go home after three years of living by myself. I didn’t know what to do. I started trying out for teams, but it didn’t go well. So I got home and did nothing. For months. I went through a small depression. It was really difficult.”

“One day, I had a really huge fight with my mom because she was really sad and really worried about me. And then I was like, ‘okay, I need to do something.’ So I applied to work at the clothing store ZARA for like two months.”

While his time at ZARA -- and away from the field -- was relatively brief, Valot still enjoyed the experience. 

“It was tough because it was always busy, but the crew was really, really awesome. I was the only guy on the team in a women’s store, so maybe that is the reason why they were all like angels with me. It was a brief but memorable experience. Working in a store like Zara with many customers every day (especially in an exclusive women’s store) is not that easy.  When I go shopping now, every time I pick something from the clothing rack or the piles, I always put it back the way it was.”

After a couple of months at his new job, Valot received an email from FFF USA inviting him to participate in a tryout for MLS. The tryout went well, but he was deemed not ready and was invited to another tryout, this time for college soccer in front of DI, DII, DIII coaches. Following the showcase, UNC-Chapel Hill were very interested in acquiring Valot, and they offered him a full scholarship. 

“They offered me the full scholarship, but they asked for my transcripts, and they told me that I did not have enough credits to be able to attend the school. So they went with somebody else. It was almost the middle of the summer, and most college teams had already given out all their scholarships available. I really wanted to go to a Division 1 school, and I had one last offer. And This is how I ended up at Rider University.” 

Having lived in Scotland for three years, Valot had a relatively smooth transition when coming to the United States. He was used to the physicality on the field, and he knew English well enough to make friends in college. The transition was so smooth that Valot ended up falling in love with New York. 

“I love New York, honestly. Paris is a beautiful city, but I miss New York every time I go back home. I think I'm more attached to New York than I am to Paris.”

Exploring the restaurants and bars around the city with his teammates and friends from college helped endear Valot to New York. 

And when the opportunity to play for the Red Bulls came up, everything started to fall into place.

Valot received an offer to train with the Red Bulls during his last semester of college, and he recalled, “ It was tiring because I would drive 90 minutes both ways every day. I would leave practice running, change real quick, get in my car, and drive back to school to be able to attend class. I had practice three or four times a week and very tough classes that last semester to graduate, so it was intense. But at the end of the day, it was totally worth it.”

After graduating from Rider, Valot signed for the RBNY II, and he coincided with a generation of stellar young players that have gone on to succeed in MLS and abroad. Alongside Tyler Adams, Derrick Etienne, Aaron Long, and Junior Flemmings, Valot went on to win the USL Championship in 2016 with the Red Bulls II. 

Looking back at his early years with the Red Bulls II, Valot attributes that squad’s success to the strong bonds amongst all the players. 

“We all lived together in the same houses, and we spent every day with each other. Usually, since the second team players don't get paid much, they get housing. I was living with Aaron Long, Vincent Bezecourt, Junior Flemming's, and Stefano Bonomo. It was a really fun house to be in because they have different characters and different personalities that just matched well with each other, so there were no conflicts. Then on the field, we worked well too, and we knew and trusted each other’s abilities.”

The following year did not go as well as Valot would have hoped after a championship season. 

“I did not do well until the very last ten games of the season when I started scoring pretty much every game. I was always in competition with Vincent [Bezecourt] because we were both French, and with all the international spot rules, it was almost a competition to see who was going to sign first.”

Bezecourt ended up getting the RBNY contract first, but Valot was offered the chance to train with the first team during the 2018 preseason for a chance at a contract as well. 

“My first two weeks of the preseason were terrible, really, really, really bad. Things in my personal life were not going well. The coach pulled me aside, and he's like, ‘what's going on? You’re not doing well, and if you keep going like this, we're going to drop you.’ From there, though, everything went better because he told me I should start seeing a sports psychologist.”

“My coach was like, ‘I think you should express yourself with someone that's going to help you train your brain. I think that's going to help you a lot.’ From there, wow, I did two other weeks of preseason, and they were really good.”

Thanks to the quick turnaround during the preseason, Valot earned a first-team contract, and he made his debut with the first team in a CONCACAF Champions League match against Club Tijuana on March 6, 2018. 

From then on, Valot featured in nearly every game until July, but an unfortunate ACL injury derailed his steady ascent into the starting XI. 

“I tore my ACL, and it was rough because everything was going super well. Suddenly, everything just stops right there. It was hard to cope with because I'd never had that before. I didn’t know how to deal with it. But at the same time, everything that I'd done to come to that point, I just couldn’t give up. So I knew I needed to just have a plan, get ready mentally, and then just do my rehab and come back.”

Valot was out for the rest of 2018, but by early 2019, he was ready to step back on the field and pick up where he left off. This time, his other ACL took him out for the entirety of 2019 after only two games. 

“Looking back at it, I'm glad I did both back-to-back because at least I'm done with it, you know,” said Valot with a laugh. 

While those two injuries sidelined Valot for nearly two full seasons, he’s chosen to look at the bright side of those setbacks. 

“I came out of it stronger and as a better person. Stronger mentally and physically. I think that I have that mental edge that not many players have. Sometimes you get frustrated that you aren’t playing, but now I see that I’m lucky to be here after everything I've been through. So I'm just going to enjoy every minute of it. I can play. It's fine. I’m going to do my best, and at the same time, I’m just thankful to be where I am because I’m playing football for a living.”

In the midst of his second comeback from an ACL tear, the COVID-19 pandemic derailed many of Valot’s plans to work his way back into the starting XI as soon as possible.

The lessons learned from those two years of injuries allowed Valot to take quarantine with patience and to see it as an opportunity to continue to train. 

While Valot trained to stay in shape and sharpen his skills ahead of a possible return in 2020, he also found time to pursue other hobbies. His favorite pastime recently: collecting Pokemon cards. 

“I'm a Pokemon fan, but I'm not collecting to resell. That is not my goal. My goal is to collect different editions and have them complete and just keep them for myself.”

In less than a year, Valot has built a collection of thousands of cards that he keeps in shiny boxes in his room. His collection is so big that he has an entire shoebox-sized container just for the thousand duplicate cards he owns. 

“I'm not trying to resell. I’m just here to show my collection to people that really like Pokemon and meet new people along the way.”

While Valot has made great headway in building his Pokemon collection, 2020 was also huge for him on the pitch. He made 23 appearances in total, and he worked his way back into the starting XI. 

“I was just really happy to be back on the field and be able to play and contribute to the team. I think that's what I needed. I needed the full season. I know that I could add something to the team, and looking back at it, I think it was a really positive year in that regard, and I think better things are coming this year for me too.”

After re-earning his place as a starter, things are looking up for Valot. The path from the suburbs of Paris to playing pro in New York hasn’t been a straight one, and he’s faced setbacks in many forms. But ahead of the 2021 season, Valot seems at ease. He’s healthy, he has a full season under his belt, he has an astonishing Pokemon collection, and he’s living in his favorite city. The Frenchman in New York is ready for 2021. 

Photography by Peter Bonilla.