30 mins into this cfc v spurs replay and im starting to not like this lavia fella or maybe its just lack of gametime but moi x enzo is far better than this bs thats fs
Mamadou Sangaré is a really good player who’d be a useful part of nearly every squad in the world.
While he doesn’t have the initial burst of power in his carries that Baleba does, for example, he works around it well. To begin with, his feet are so, so quick when he has the ball. This naturally indicates a high level of control, but if he does take a heavy touch, his long reach and good balance mean he’s able to get to the ball anyway before setting off again.
Furthermore, he shifts between acceleration → deceleration quite smoothly, making him hard to press simply because of the variety and unpredictability of his movements. This change of pace also means he can go from receive → progress very quickly.
He sometimes likes to roll the ball under his sole and carry it along with him, instead of prodding it forwards, which is a neat way of covering ground if you’re able to exert sufficient control over the ball (which he does).
He’s also developed a tendency to shift the ball quickly between the insides of his feet, making him difficult to read/dispossess. From there, he can shift it to either side really quickly, allowing him to go around his man. It’s quite smart considering he lacks the initial burst to get past his man otherwise, especially as his ability to do so in either direction makes it a tad more unpredictable.
While I generally like his security and intentions on the ball, Sangaré is heavily dependent on passing with his left foot. He does mitigate this with a general willingness (and almost fluidity?) to open his hips so that he can spray passes at odd angles, but still, it’s fairly easy to limit his options if you know he’s definitely going to pass with his left.
That said, he plays passes quickly and does well to cover space before and after doing so (should he give the ball away, he’s pretty quick to press his marker and try to force an error, so a lot of his dispossessions won’t be costly), so I suppose you could say he tries to beat that predictability by playing quicker than his marker expects.
He’s pretty smart when it comes to defending, particularly when deciding whether to press man vs space. When defending space, his balance and reach again help him stretch to intercept, though he’s started to lunge into such tackles a little too frequently for my liking. Sure, he recovers well, but it generally just increases the burden on his teammates (by way of having to cover ground).
When he stays on his feet, he looks assured in duels and is generally good at holding his man off when pressed from behind. His aerial numbers are pretty good too.
As of now, I think he’d be a good starter for a UEL-level side, whilst being a valuable part of a decent UCL squad. I think he can go on to become a hugely valuable member of a squad that competes regularly for titles, whilst putting in consistent performances on a regular basis. I'm a fan.
I pity people who spend millis on coaching when YouTube is literally right here
shoutout every single teacher out here man i love every single one of you
Centre-back view here is too obsessed with the physical. Duels won, pace, aerial numbers. It’s the easiest thing to measure, so it’s become the only thing we measure. But it’s not what defending actually is.
The best defenders win most of their duels before the duel exists.