It’s fair to say that France’s top tier produces a number of top young stars in the making, some of whom go onto greatness while others fall short of expectations.
It’s always a playground packed with midfield talent, and that was certainly the case at Toulouse around the turn of the decade, with Etienne Capoue and Moussa Sissoko both graduating from the club’s academy. Both emerged with reputations as big as their statures and would go on to be capped for the French national team but, in truth, both fall into the category of having failed to live up to their promise.
Now there’s a new midfield colossus on the block at TFC, and Ibrahim Sangare will be hoping to emulate the initial success of his predecessors, but better build upon his lofty potential.
Having made his debut as an 18-year-old back in 2016, the Ivorian only really established himself as a first team regular midway through last season, going on to start 18 times in Ligue 1. He's continued that under Alain Casanova this season. His ball-winning ability was clear to see, averaging the most tackles per 90 minutes of players to start ten or more games (4.1) - a feat previously achieved by the likes of Mario Lemina, Idrissa Gueye and, of course, N’Golo Kante.
After four matches of the current season he’s already improved on that figure, currently averaging 4.5 per 90 minutes, with no player having made more tackles in total ahead of the international break (18). The efficiency of his challenges have seen a huge improvement to now too, dribbled past just once, resulting in an outstanding 94.7 per cent tackle success - up from 64.3 per cent last season.
It’s the progress in other aspects of his game that offers the most encouragement that Sangare could become the modern all round midfielder that is so in demand nowadays, with significant developments in his dribbling and passing thus far.
Only Allan Saint-Maximin (15) and Ferland Mendy (14) have completed more dribbles in Ligue 1 than the youngster at this early stage (13), and while he proved last season that he was able to use his power to breeze past opponents, again his efficiency is on the rise. Last season the midfielder completed 29 of 36 attempts - an impressive 80.6 per cent success - and this time around he’s been dispossessed on just three of 16 attempts - 81.3 per cent...
