Kobbie Mainoo has been the breakout star of Manchester United’s season and the latest gem to have been unearthed from their youth academy.
The midfielder is outperforming some much older players in the team, but remains humble amid his surging rise, a testament to how well he was raised by his parents.
The 18-year-old has made 18 appearances in his debut senior campaign with the Red Devils and his standout moment came after scoring a stunning last-gasp winner in his side’s 4-3 win over Wolves in February.
He truly introduced himself with that stunning strike and has been a mainstay in the Manchester United starting XI since then.
The teenager is clearly extremely grateful to them for helping him pursue a footballing career and get to where he is right now.
Who Are Kobbie Mainoo’s Parents?
Kobbie Boateng Mainoo was born on 19 April, 2005 to Felix and Abena Mainoo in Stockport, England. His parents are both Ghanaian, which is why Mainoo has the opportunity to represent Ghana at the international level.
Kobbie has two sisters Ama and Efia, with the former having a degree in Sports Business Management and the latter being the CEO of Manchester-based beauty business BlackOwned MCR.
Felix and Abena actually went through a divorce a few years ago and Abena has remarried to Rob Herold, getting the name of Abena Herold.
Despite that, Kobbie’s two parents do their best to support their child’s rise in football and were actually seen in the picture with him when he signed his professional contract with Manchester United last year.
The two were also instrumental in noticing the budding talents of Kobbie at a young age when he started to play for the Cheadle Catholic Junior School’s team.
He went on to play for the Cheadle & Gatley Juniors but it was his dad, Felix, who realized that the level was ‘too comfortable’ for him and recognized the hidden talents in his son to be a superstar in football – when he wasn’t even seven years old.
How Felix Mainoo Shaped Kobbie’s Career
When young Kobbie was only six, Felix decided to visit the coach of the Failsworth Dynamos junior team in Manchester.
The coach of the team at that time, Ian Kelly, recalled how Felix took the task of approaching him to enrol Kobbie into the team, saying: “One Sunday morning I was approached by a quiet gentleman who had been standing on the touchline with his lad watching our under-sevens play.
“He asked me if I had any spots left in our team. Although we were already full I got Kobbie to come along and start training with us anyway. The rest is, of course, history and now I see how they are talking about him having this vision on the pitch. But if anybody had a vision about Kobbie and how good he might be it was his dad.”
At that time, Kobbie was also enrolled to play at a venue called Shots in Manchester to keep training under his coach at Cheadle & Gatley in Paul Newton.
However, as he kept impressing for the Failsworth Dynamos side, Kobbie started to earn attention from major football clubs in Manchester – including United and Manchester City.
Newton recalls that period and how Felix tried to ask for his advice on which club would be the best one to develop his side into a world-class player, telling The Athletic: “United and City were chasing him from when he was six. He was that special at a young age. I worked at City, but I’m a very good friend with Felix and he was always adamant about United. I said to him: ‘This is just your decision; you and Kobbie’.”
Ultimately, Felix went with his gut instinct and accepted the offer from the Red Devils for Mainoo to join their youth academy and develop his footballing skills at United.
The rest, as they say, is history. Kobbie joined the Red Devils at the age of 9, played at multiple youth levels and won the FA Youth Cup with the United under-19 team in 2022 – as well as playing for the likes of England under-17s and under-19s, before getting his big breakthrough into United’s senior team at the beginning of 2023 in a Carabao Cup win over Charlton Athletic.
Manchester City have actually tried their best to snatch him over from their rivals and tried influencing him to join their academy on a number of occasions in the past. However, Kobbie struck loyal to the Red Devils – even though the senior team went through a difficult period after the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.
The 18-year-old is clearly grateful to his parents for instilling the right values into him, including unquestionable loyalty, and that is why doesn’t shy away from showing his love for his mum and dad whenever he can.
