Mama Baldé (176cm/593, 69kg/152lbs) came up through Portuguese side Sintrense’s youth academy until 2013 when, at 17 years of age, Baldé moved to Portuguese giants Sporting CP where he finished off his youth academy career and subsequently began his senior football career.
The attacker first left Portugal in 2019, joining French side Dijon for €665k After two seasons and 57 games with Dijon, the player went on to join fellow French side Troyes in 2021, this time for €3.5m, where he remains today.
At present, the 26-year-old is enjoying a positive Ligue 1 campaign, having contributed seven goals and three assists in 13 league appearances.
Baldé is a player who’s been shifted around the attacking part of the pitch a lot throughout his career, from one wing to the other, to the ‘10’ position and the centre-forward position. However, this season, he’s played primarily as a centre-forward and this has worked fantastically.
When played as a centre-forward during his career, Baldé has typically delivered for his team, and that’s definitely been the case this season, with the Guinea-Bissau international currently trailing just six other Ligue 1 players for league goals this term, equalling PSG forward and Barcelona legend Lionel Messi in that area.
Our Baldé tactical analysis piece, in the form of a scout report, looks at the forward’s key strengths and weaknesses as displayed by his 2022/23 performances with Bruno Irles’ Troyes. Our scout report aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the player’s role in Irles’ tactics, which was described as “the role that suits him perfectly” by teammate Tristan Dingomé recently, as well as where he’s currently lacking, though coach Irles has declared he’s “happy with what [Baldé’s] showing now”.
Ball-carrying
As figure 1 displays, Baldé plays for a Troyes side that keeps very little of the ball, primarily aiming to capitalise on transitions to attack. They tend not to press very high, more often than not being found in a mid-low block.
While they aren’t the most aggressive team in Ligue 1 in defending from the front, Baldé still has an important job to do in the defensive phases. The attacker is required to press aggressively on certain pressing triggers, and his defensive awareness along with work rate are key to Troyes’ defensive system working as intended, allowing them to generate the counter-attacks they aim to create.
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