Bordeaux's Beau plays the game in his head

Every scouting trip begins with a question about what a young player can do with his feet. The notes that come back from Bordeaux keep answering a different one. Gautier Beau, sixteen and French, came through the club's youth intake in March, and what has drawn watchers to him since is not the touch but the timing of it: he chooses early, and the choice is usually right.

In one passage that stayed with our observer, Beau took a pass under pressure with his back to the pitch, shifted his hips to buy a yard and played the next ball into space before the challenge arrived. It looked simple. It was the kind of decision a senior professional makes after years of being punished for the other one. Add agility that lets him repeat it at speed, technique that keeps the ball close in tight areas, and a streak of flair that makes him worth watching rather than merely sound, and you have a player who is easy to enjoy and hard to ignore.

The determination is there too, visible in the way he tracks back after losing the ball and asks for it again immediately. He is hardly known outside his town, and that is the right place for him to be. Bordeaux, well known across the continent, have a habit of producing footballers and then asking them to grow up quickly; the temptation to hurry Beau will be real.

Our scouts will keep watching. The evidence so far suggests a player who could develop into something substantial, though nobody can say how far the head will carry him. For now, the decisions are the story.