Sepe Elye Wahi 2021/22: Montpellier’s Golden Boy nominee with as many non-penalty goals as Neymar – scout report

Though Sepe Elye Wahi (184cm/6’0”, 74kg/163lbs) first broke into Montpellier’s first team in the second half of the 2020/21 season, the 19-year-old forward really started to shine last season, during the second half of which he firmly established himself as a regular starter.

Wahi ended the 2021/22 campaign with as many non-penalty goals (10) as PSG’s out-on-loan breakout star Arnaud Kalimuendo (who’s been linked with the likes of Premier League side Leeds United and Serie A giants Inter of late), tried and tested Ligue 1 goalscorer Gaëtan Laborde and global superstar Neymar — not bad company. His non-penalty xG (7.9, per Statsbomb via FBRef) was also very healthy, equalling that of Kalimuendo and trailing Neymar by just 0.4.

His impressive season led to the teenager being nominated for the Golden Boy award, alongside the likes of Real Madrid’s UEFA Champions League winner and former Rennes starlet Eduardo Camavinga, Borussia Dortmund’s Jude Bellingham and Barcelona’s Pedri, just to name a few.

Okay, let’s be realistic, Wahi won’t win the award but it’s still some well-earned recognition and a brilliant achievement for the 19-year-old Montpellier attacker, who came through the academy system at his current club along with, previously, Montfermeil, Caen and JS Suresnes — the latter being his first club, a fact he shares with N’Golo Kanté.

This tactical analysis and scout report aims to highlight what has made the Montpellier teenager explode onto the French football scene over the past year or so through analysis of his role within his team’s tactics, preferences on the pitch and key strengths. Furthermore, this analysis will focus on some of Wahi’s weaknesses too to show where the attacker could yet improve his game and take himself to another level.

Movement and shooting

Wahi is a natural, clinical finisher. That much is obvious from watching his performances for Montpellier over the past year and the wide range of finishes he’s pulled off, along with just observing how comfortable he is approaching the goal from all different angles and taking shots on from there.

Don’t take that to mean Wahi just shoots on sight — he’s got some of the best shot selection in France and his average shot distance (12.6m, per Statsbomb via FBRef) impressively ranks him in the 79th percentile for this particular metric among all forwards in Europe’s top-five leagues for the last calendar year, indicating that he takes his shots from relatively close to goal.

Wahi’s off-the-ball movement during the chance creation phase to create separation between himself and the defenders while moving into high-value areas plays a key part in his ability to routinely take shots from very close to goal, which we’ll analyse in figures 1-3.

Figure 1 shows an example of Montpellier building from the middle third of the pitch into the final third, with Wahi placed in his preferred centre-forward position in this image, though we’ve seen the right-footed attacker operate from both the wide right and wide left forward positions at times this term.

Don’t expect to see Wahi offer himself up as an outlet for his teammates to use to escape pressure via a short ball to feet very often, as the 19-year-old much prefers to attack space behind the opposition’s backline, as we also see in figure 1. It’s very uncommon to see Wahi receive the ball to feet, that’s not his game and is actually a weakness in his game, which we’ll move on to later in this scout report.