Nouhou Tolo knew by age 15 he needed to distinguish himself from scores of other teenage boys in his country hoping to become professional soccer players.
There’d been no shortage of raw talent in his Cameroonian hometown of Douala, a port city of 2.4 million where most teenage players dreamed of representing the nation’s Indomitable Lions on the World Cup stage. To stand apart from that crowd, he’d not only have to improve his natural speed and strength, but develop the technical and mental parts of his game.
“I had to work twice as hard,’’ said Nouhou, now 20, who made his Major League Soccer debut in June and has since been featured regularly by a Sounders team that resumes its schedule Wednesday night against D.