Why Benoit Badiashile excites Europe’s elite and how he must evolve to validate Monaco’s valuation – scout report

Benoît Badiashile (194cm/6’4”, 75kg/165lbs) has been watched closely by those privy to what Ligue 1, European football’s self-proclaimed “league of talents”, has had on offer ever since making his senior debut for AS Monaco — his only professional club thus far, where he’s been since 2016 — back in the 2018/19 campaign, aged just 17 years old. He went on to make 20 Ligue 1 appearances, in total, for Les Monégasques that season, accumulating 1763 league minutes.

The left-footed centre-back has gone from strength to strength since then and has since established himself as a key, consistently available member of Monaco’s backline. Last season was his most prolific in terms of minutes so far in his young career, with the France U21 international making 35 league appearances under former Bayern Munich player and manager, Niko Kovač, in what was the Croatian coach’s first season in charge at Stade Louis II. The 20-year-old has remained a regular member of Kovač’s starting XI this term despite dealing with some injury issues, featuring in 14 of Monaco’s first 17 competitive games so far, accumulating 1115 minutes so far.

The Frenchman’s talent and potential is no secret. Badiashile’s name has been heavily touted as one to watch essentially since he made his Ligue 1 debut three seasons ago and the 20-year-old is notably said to have attracted heavy interest from some of Europe’s elite, including Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester United — the latter of whom were reportedly prepared to spend as much as €25m on Badiashile just over a year ago before allegedly getting knocked back by both the club, who according to reliable French football journalist Mohamed Bouhafsi were told they’d need to “make a Martial-like (€60m)” offer for the defender’s services, as well as the player, who later revealed he had no regrets “at all” over not moving to Manchester.

In this tactical analysis and scout report, I’ll shine a light on what exactly it is about Badiashile that has some of Europe’s top clubs so excited about him by highlighting the key strengths within his game, while I’ll also highlight the key areas in which I feel the 20-year-old must improve to justify Monaco’s “Martial-like” valuation of him. Badiashile is, undoubtedly, one of the top young homegrown talents that Ligue 1 has on offer at present and I fully back all of Europe’s top clubs in keeping a very close eye on him. However, he is still 20 years old and he’s not the finished product that he could one day develop into, which will be explained as this scout report progresses.

Passing

I feel that Badiashile’s abilities on the ball are his greatest assets; that has certainly been the case this season, with the Frenchman producing some excellent, standout performances on the ball.

Les Monégasques are a heavily possession-based team at present and Badiashile plays a key, central role in Kovač’s tactics on the ball. This term, he’s played 73.64 passes per 90 — the second-most passes played per 90 of any Ligue 1 centre-back to have played more than 200 minutes so far this season — while he’s managed to retain a 92.45% pass accuracy rate, which also ranks very well among the aforementioned centre-backs.

As well as being heavily involved in his side’s possession game, the Monaco man is, by nature, a very progressive centre-back. He’s made 1.23 progressive runs per 90 this term, which ranks fairly well amongst Ligue 1 centre-backs in that particular area and gives us an indication of how much Badiashile likes to carry the ball out from the back for his side. However, the 20-year-old primarily likes to drive his team upfield via his passing ability. This term, the Frenchman has completed a very impressive average of 13.58 progressive passes per 90 in the league — the most progressive passes of any Ligue 1 centre-back to have played at least 200 minutes so far in the 2021/22 campaign. Furthermore, Badiashile has got an equally impressive 89.77% progressive pass success rate for this season, which ranks him fourth among the Ligue 1 centre-backs with at least 200 minutes played at this point, with most teams having played 10 league games.

All of this highlights the extent to which Kovač’s side place responsibility on Badiashile in the build-up and ball progression phases, as well as the 20-year-old’s comfortability with shouldering that responsibility and acting as a very reliable ball progressor despite the heavy extent to which his team relies on him to help them break the opposition’s first one or two lines of defence.

Badiashile typically occupies the left centre-back position at Stade Louis II. He’s comfortable playing on the left of a back two or a back three, with Kovač making adjustments to his tactical setup at Monaco semi-regularly and a switch from a back two to a back three, and vice versa, being part of those tactical changes at times. Figure 1 shows an example of Badiashile occupying the left centre-back position in the 4-2-3-1 shape that his team used while playing against Troyes in Ligue 1 earlier this term.

As well as just his positioning, this passage of play from figures 1 and 2 highlights a key component of Badiashile’s ball-playing quality: his composure on the ball, especially under pressure. The 20-year-old is very comfortable with attracting pressure when in possession with the hope that this leads to space opening up ahead of him for him and Monaco to exploit.