‘Look at Messi and Maradona’: size won’t limit Hong Kong midfield talent Jesse Yu, who is playing a transfer waiting game
- Jesse Yu is starring for an Eastern team flying high in the local Premier League, and eyeing FA Cup success
- Head coach Roberto Losada insists Yu will become a fixture in the Hong Kong team, and has the potential to become a great player
One of the city’s most exciting young footballers, Jesse Yu Joy-yin, is in no rush to join Hong Kong teammates flocking to the mainland, following a fabulous 2024 for the Eastern midfielder.
Yu’s nimble feet led Kitchee’s foreign stars on a merry dance on Wednesday, as swashbuckling Eastern beat the defending champions 2-1 at a boisterous Mong Kok Stadium.
Roberto Losada, the Eastern head coach, told the Post that Yu boasted the potential to be a “great player … to grow up and go to another country, to be better, and earn more money”.
Given his playing pedigree with Real Oviedo and Real Valladolid in La Liga – where he scored goals in Barcelona’s Camp Nou and Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium – and an astuteness that earned him the 2023 Hong Kong coach of the year, Losada’s is a voice worth hearing.
He dismissed the notion of Yu being held back by a small, slight frame, making his point with a reference to the similar statures of some of the game’s greatest-ever players.
“I am not comparing him to [Lionel] Messi or [Diego] Maradona, of course, but every player has different qualities,” Losada said. “He is not going to win high balls, but he is fast and can carry the ball.
