With AFCON 2021 starting in a few days, lots of clubs in Europe are starting to lose their best players. EPL stars like Sadio Mané, Mohamed Salah or Riyad Mahrez are among the most well-known African players and everyone knows how they play and how important they’ll be for their national teams.
In this tactical analysis piece, we have provided a short scout report on four U23 players who are still playing in Africa and maybe less known to the average football fan. For these players, shining in a tournament as important as the AFCON 2021 means the possibility to be seen and scouted by the world’s best clubs and the opportunity to make their first steps out of their countries.
Karim Konaté, 17 years old, ASEC Mimosas & Ivory Coast
Karim Konaté is a 2004-born Ivorian striker who plays for ASEM Mimosas in his country’s Ligue 1. Despite his young age, he has scored at least 13 goals in 24 appearances and has been capped twice by Ivory Coast.
Konaté is an explosive striker who excels with his movements in the box and the final third but can also contribute from the second line. He stands at 1.78m / 5’10’’ and has excellent physicality, which will probably continue to improve given his young age.
He’s quick and very aggressive in his movements in the box, showing instinct and intelligence to score most of his goals from inside the six-yard box. He’s very focused and always ready to catch any rebound or loose ball in the box and score. His finishing is still very inconsistent so he relies on getting into very good positions to score. He also has an excellent jump that allows him to anticipate the goalkeeper and win aerials to head crosses. Konaté also runs in behind with great speed and is a big threat against teams that press high.
Watching his shots map below, we see that Konaté scores mostly from very high-xG positions and he doesn’t need to be very accurate as most of his shots are tap-ins. Its worrying that he hasn’t scored any goals from difficult positions, which shows his finishing is still not very good.
However, his intelligence and instinct are rare in a 17-year-old striker and it’s a matter of time until his finishing gets to a decent level. Despite missing some clear chances, he scores the clearest ones and has scored 0.91 goals from 0.73xG per 90 in the games in which his stats are available.
When looking at his game outside the box, Konaté has good technique, can control and pass the ball accurately with either foot, carry it at high speed and combine in tight spaces. He likes to drift wide to create from there and can create some chances for others with his combinations at the edge of the box. He also does well to attract defenders and then release the ball at the exact moment. With his dribbling skills, Konaté can carry the ball forward through the middle or from the wings and also create space to shoot with quick and accurate movements.
