Sadio Mané, Naby Keïta, Marcel Sabitzer, Dayot Upamecano, Kevin Kampl, Munas Dabbur and Takumi Minamino are just a few players who developed their skills at RB Salzburg and then moved on to join bigger clubs in Europe. Salzburg are already known for their development of young talents and made a name for themselves with it.
During the last summer break, Salzburg sold Xaver Schlager, Hannes Wolf and Diadie Samassékou three of their most important central midfielders. Due to that, it was clear ahead of this season that we would get to see new players in the centre of the park. However, almost no one thought that the 19-years-old Mohamed Camara would get much time on the pitch, but the American coach Jesse Marsch gave him a chance and he took it. The young midfielder made six appearances for the second team of Salzburg this season, FC Liefering, and five for RB Salzburg. So, he’s just one step ahead of becoming a regular part of the senior team.
In this tactical analysis in form of a scout report, we’ll look at his abilities and how he fits into RB Salzburg’s tactics.
Positioning and movement
RB Salzburg’s coach Jesse Marsch used different formations throughout the campaign. The 4-diamond-2, 4-4-2 and 3-1-4-2 are the three most used systems in this season. In light of this, Camara also played in different positions in different formations.
However, no matter if he was the lone man in front of the back four or the back three, or if he was part of a double pivot, he was always the man who had the task to support the defenders during the first stage of the build-up and additionally win back balls in front of the last line of the defence. We’ll look at these aspects more closely later on in this analysis.
Considering this, Camara is always positioned deep and near the defenders to provide them with a passing option in the centre. We often see situations in which defensive midfielders drop deep between the centre-backs and position themselves on the same height as their teammates. Sergio Busquets is probably the most popular for that kind of movement. Anyways, you rarely see Camara doing this as he always stays in front of the defence. In the example below, Marsch lined his team up in a 3-1-4-2 formation against WSG Tirol. The 19-year-old was the only defensive midfielder and due to that, together with the back three, he created a kind of a diamond to easily circulate the ball within the opening phase of the build-up.
However, when Salzburg used a system with two defensive midfielders, as you can see in the shot below, Camara was still always positioned in front of the back four. In this match, they used a 4-4-2 with Camara and Zlatko Junuzović in the central midfield. Since the Austrian midfielder is more offensive than Camara, we either saw them both in front of the back four (as you can see in the example below) or Junuzović positioned himself in a higher line while Camara stayed deep and helped the two centre-backs organise the build-up.
