Mulhouse (AFP)

"He was very kind and well mannered: we would have liked to have him as a son!": Kobe Bryant, who died Sunday in a helicopter accident, left an indelible memory for those who rubbed shoulders with him in Mulhouse, where he lived a few months with his family when he was a teenager.

The young Kobe was 13 years old when he arrived in Alsace in August 1991 after seven years in Italy, where his father, a professional basketball player, had played after eight seasons in the NBA.

"In 1991, I was loaned to Mulhouse by Limoges and we saw the arrival of an American player of 2.06 m: Joe Bryant, who was a little + The Magic Johnson of Europe +", recalls the former French international Jimmy Vérove.

"It lasted a few months, but I could not know that I was having fun with the one who was going to become the best player in the world. He was very determined, always with his ball under his arm," continues- he.

In this same hotel where the Bryant family stayed for several months, Thierry Jung works. He is the one who finds the school where Kobe and his sisters will go to school during their few months in Mulhouse. "Joe asked me to find him an English school for Kobe and his two sisters. Thanks to my wife who worked in Switzerland, I managed to find him an American school in Basel to enroll his children", where they were going train, he remembers.

- "He always beat me" -

Little by little, Thierry Jung will form a friendship with Kobe. Thanks to basketball of course.

"I had put up a basketball hoop on a tennis court, it was fixed on one of the poles of the structure and I played it when the ground was not used. One day Kobe saw me and asked if he could play with me. I accepted with pleasure. We were doing one on one, free throws ... He was still beating me! "says Jung.

Despite the language barrier, Thierry Jung and the young Kobe manage to communicate and share good times: "I spoke a few words of English so we managed to understand each other, and on the ground we didn't need to speak ".

If he had detected the talent of the young American, he did not imagine that he would become one of the greatest legends of his sport.

"I immediately noticed that he had great technical skills, well above average: he had a ball outfit and a dribble which was already impressive. But when he was caught four years later by the Lakers, at only 17 years old, I thought to myself: + it must be a namesake +! "

- "A legend" -

Jean-Luc Monschau also briefly saw Kobe Bryant at work. The technician had trained Mulhouse the previous six seasons but had just given way to Chris Singleton. Before leaving to coach Le Mans, he attended a few matches of his former team in September 1991.

"What is interesting is that the young Kobe Bryant furnished the halftime of the matches. He already demonstrated everything he knew how to do at the age of 13, he was already very skillful with the And suddenly people at half-time did not go to the refreshment stand: they stayed in their place to watch it ", recalls the man who returned to train Mulhouse-Pfastatt, today in Nationale 1.

For all, the announcement of the death of the "Black Mamba" was a shock. "We first believed in fake news," says Jimmy Vérove. "He was a legend, and superheroes are not expected to die. He marked basketball history, he will mark it for a long time."

"I sincerely think that if he had played before Michael Jordan, he would have been the icon," said Vérove. "In addition, his end hurts even more because he was with his daughter, who was + Kobe in small +. All the dads can recognize themselves there."

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