Scouting: Cheick Doucouré
It is undeniable that today’s French generations are among the richest in talent in the world. Not only is this confirmed by the World Cup title, but also by the number of French players in the major European clubs: Pogba, Umtiti, Varane, Martial, Lenglet, Dembelé, Laporte, Griezmann, Mbappé, Rabiot and so on.
The French market thus appears to be a pool of talent with very favourable technical and physical conditions to exploit. And if the French Premier League is becoming more and more a wealthy league, which is also the result of the growth of PSG, which has inevitably attracted attention to the competition, now trying to renegotiate the television rights in order to generate more revenue; the French Premier League also has a number of good business opportunities. The second French league is a competition with room for young talents to emerge and which has some of the best clubs in France, such as RC Lens. This is a competition from which NDombelé, Lengelt and Cyprien have recently emerged and which have proved to be ready for the top flight.
The northern French club have a renowned academy from which they have emerged, including Raphael Varane, Kondogbia, Thorgan Hazard, Aurier, Cyprien and others. And the player that I bring you today is one more that promises to continue the line of good talents launched by the club of Lens.
Discovered by RC Lens scouting earlier this year at AS Real Bamako, a club in the capital of Mali, where some of the most promising midfielders of today, such as Samassékou, Amadou Haidara, come from. When he arrived in Lens he was part of the junior team but quickly stood out from the others, being part of the first team at the beginning of this season. And in RC Lens’ first team, Cheick Doucouré, just 18 years old, grabbed the place and became an absolute starter in position 6. Not being a very tall (1.80 m) and strong player, Doucouré seems to be relatively agile and intelligent when it comes to protecting the ball, being a very pressure-resistant midfielder, allowing his team to gain quality during the construction of the game and allowing it to progress together, from behind. For that he also makes use of his ability at the level of the pass, both short and long and where he seems to be always attentive to opportunities to verticalise.
The young midfielder in Mali then seems to be a player cut out for large teams, who base their game on control of it by possession, who builds from behind, who offers the bearer various options so that he can then decide on the best paths to follow, which progresses in a compact way.
To be completely honest, the sample is too short to make any definitive comment, but the indicators are good. But a quick search allows you to find several congruent opinions about its quality:
In his debut he did this, showing good details:
Also in one of Lens’s first games he made this pass from behind allowing him to create the imbalance that resulted in the goal. Already mentioned in a previous post here on the blog.
It would seem that the first indications have come to light and that the young Malian has drawn the attention of several better placed clubs, such as Inter Milan or Lyon (whose experience with N’Dombelé has been very fruitful). Still, so far nothing concrete has happened and may still be a good business opportunity.
PS: If anyone knows where to find complete Lens matches, please beep. It may result in a compilation to help complete the post!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
