Ibrahima Konate

[Scott_M]

Speaks perfect English, eh? Just like his mate Mbappe…

 

Keita should take note. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

The size of him, imagine him and VVD pairing up together. 

Keegan up front, Pulis at the back. Total fucking football.

[m0e]

2 hours ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

The size of him, imagine him and VVD pairing up together. 

And if you can't imagine it, just hang about for a few months.

 

[Jairzinho]

1 hour ago, Scott_M said:

Speaks perfect English, eh? Just like his mate Mbappe…

 

Keita should take note. 

Just lacking that wee bit of growing up in Paris rather than West Africa. 

[Scott_M]

13 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Just lacking that wee bit of growing up in Paris rather than West Africa. 

Not sure which player that is aimed at, but if it’s Keita, he knew he was coming here for 12 months beforehand.

[Jairzinho]

19 hours ago, Scott_M said:

Not sure which player that is aimed at, but if it’s Keita, he knew he was coming here for 12 months beforehand.

Fair play if you have learned languages fluently in 12 months. 

[3 Stacks]

No one would care about the not learning English thing if Keita was any good. 

[Barrington Womble]

30 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

No one would care about the not learning English thing if Keita was any good. 

Spot on. It took aguero years to speak English. I'm pretty sure tevez never did. But they turned up and made it no issue. The only thing I would say is when he arrived there was a lot of talk about him being clingy to mane. Perhaps he'd have settled better if he had more mates in the squad and that surely is easier if you share a language. 

[Scott_M]

5 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

Fair play if you have learned languages fluently in 12 months. 

 

5 hours ago, 3 Stacks said:

No one would care about the not learning English thing if Keita was any good. 

1) Reading the stories on him, it didn’t sound as if he started.

 

If he did, I fully apologise and retract my comment. 
 

2) I agree. If he was great then it wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, he isn’t and his lack of language skills can’t help.

 

Overall, Keita not knowing English isn’t

new news. The story has been around a while. Regardless of his performances, it’d have expected him to have a grasp on the world’s language before he came here.

 

If you got a high paying, non-English speaking job abroad, wouldn’t you give it all to learn the language and hit the ground running? I know I would. 
 

Again, maybe Keita did but that’s not the way the journalists close to the club have reported it. 

[an tha]

No excuse at all in my opinion for footballers to not learn the language in country they play in.

 

They are fucking loaded so paying for tuition (and the very best tuition too) is no problem and they have a fair bit of spare time to do it.

[Chocoholic]

If Keita spoke with his feet, then the only thing he'd ever need to do with his mouth is smile, and nobody would give a toss if he never spoke a word.

 

But as he has not, then it's only fair to say that learning at least the fundamentals of the language of a country you're moving to, with 12 months notice, would seem a basic professional requirement in order to communicate with teammates and coaching staff. Thereafter, when surrounded by and immersed in the language, progress and improvement should follow fairly steadily. Nobody expects fluency, but a decent working knowledge of the language so that at least that cannot be used as an excuse in not being able to 'settle' at his club or country of residence.

 

I'd rather never have to write that, as like most on here, we were so full of expectation from the months of hype we were fed, that the reality has been such a massive underwhelming anti-climax. Michael Edwards must be disgusted at his reputation being besmirched by Keita's many shortcomings.

 

This one's not on you, Michael, don't worry.

[SasaS]

How good is Keita's German?

[Butch]

Has the cunt landed yet... 

[Scott_M]

He gets us. 
 

 

[Jimmy Hills Chin]

6 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

He gets us. 
 

 

Just after this he was accused by the media of wrecking the Man City coach

[Scott_M]

Obviously twice the player VVD will ever be. 
 

[Funkasy]

Nice of the club to get him a cake, Yaya Toure would agree.

[mattyq]

Still no lean

[VladimirIlyich]

6 hours ago, mattyq said:

Still no lean

He's lean enough.

[Elite]

Mmm....cake.

[Lario]

18 hours ago, Scott_M said:

Obviously twice the player VVD will ever be. 
 

Shit Atari tee.

[dockers_strike]

RB Leipzig are no strangers to unearthing wonderkids but when the club’s scouts found Ibrahima Konaté his talent made them sit up and take notice.

 

The Bundesliga side’s network of feeder clubs often allow Leipzig to park stars of tomorrow before they are ready for the German top-flight. Naby Keïta and Dayot Upamecano learned to walk at RB Salzburg before they could run at Leipzig. Even Erling Haaland had a brief spell in Austria, before Borussia Dortmund tempted the striker away from the Red Bull network.

 

Unlike those stars, however, Konaté was deemed good enough for the Bundesliga at the age of 18. “We have been watching Ibrahima Konaté for some time,” said sports director Ralf Rangnick when the defender joined from Sochaux on a free transfer in 2017. “He's so good that he could play for Real Madrid or Barcelona one day.”

Rangnick’s prediction may still come true but if the young Frenchman is to end up in Spain he will now have to do so following a successful spell at Anfield, after joining Liverpool this summer for an impressive sum of money.

 

A quick glance at Konaté on a football pitch will quickly explain why the Merseyside club were so willing to part with their money before the transfer window had even opened.

 

At 6’4”, Konaté had the height to dominate in the air in a division renowned for powerful strikers like Haaland and Robert Lewandowski. When you add remarkable pace to that equation you get all the building blocks of a promising, modern defender.

 

“He’s very quick, good in the duels and he’s strong in the air,” RB Leipzig and former Liverpool goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi told Telegraph Sport. “He has also improved over the years with the ball at his feet. He’s now very composed. He knows his strength and he’s a clever player.”

 

Liverpool would have undoubtedly been drawn to his technical ability on the ball too. As a child, Konaté was far more interested in being a striker in four-vs-four games and eventually moved into midfield in Paris FC’s youth academy. The future Bundesliga star only made the move into defence after his move to Sochaux and promotion to senior football in France’s Ligue 1.

 

Despite moving further down the pitch, Konaté did not lose any of his effectiveness as a player and after just half a season in the French top-flight, RB Leipzig swooped for the defender and threw him straight into Ralph Hasenhüttl’s squad for the 2017-18 season. "Some new additions will have to be googled,” joked Rangnick ahead of Konaté’s arrival from relative obscurity to the Bundesliga.

 

Like Konaté, the German club were young, relatively untested but unquestionably ambitious and in many ways proved to be the perfect place for the defender to develop his talents. Making his debut in a league clash with Cologne at the age of just 18 years and four months, Konaté’s talents quickly came to the fore through Hasenhüttl’s tenacious tactics.

 

“He was really young and he was already really, really good. You could see he was going to become a top centre-back,” notes Gulacsi on his introduction to Konaté. “He’s very disciplined as well, so there was never a problem with him in the changing room.”

The defender’s remarkable pace, ball control and confidence in dribbling through the middle of the pitch to trouble deep-lying opponents fitted in perfectly with RB Leipzig’s high defensive line and relentless pressing of the ball and after just one year at the club Konaté had established himself alongside Upamecano and Willi Orbán as a necessity in defence.

Having masterminded his move to the club, it seemed only fitting that Rangnick then got the best out of Konaté, when the German stepped into the role of head coach following Hasenhüttl’s departure for Southampton.

Having previously described Rangnick as “somehow like a kind of dad to me” due to their close relationship, Konaté featured in all but six of RB Leipzig’s games in 2018-19 and played a pivotal role in Rangnick’s side finishing third with the best defensive record in the Bundesliga.

Such were Konaté’s performances that he was awarded with a contract extension midway through the campaign, following inevitable interest from bigger clubs like Liverpool. "Konaté has developed brilliantly here so far and his qualities have led to him becoming an integral member of our defence,” said Rangnick when the new contract was announced, before describing it as “a very important personnel decision” for Konaté.

That season should have been a springboard for the French talent to announce himself as Europe’s next defensive star and establish himself as one of the key players in Julian Nagelsmann’s team for the following season. But misfortune was just around the corner.

In just the seventh game of the season, Konaté collided with Lyon forward Memphis Depay in a Champions League group game and was forced to come off after just 27 minutes. Scans later found that the player had tore his hip flexor muscle, which ruled him out for the majority of the season.

Konaté tried to return for the final games of the campaign but that only aggravated the injury more and in the summer of 2020 the player was forced to have surgery to fix the problem. “I had problems for a long time and after my return at the end of the season it didn't get better,” recounted Konaté in an interview with Kicker. “The injury bothered me. I wasn't clear in my head. That's why we performed the operation.”

That should have been that but recovery from the surgery and then a subsequent ankle injury saw Konaté miss a further 15 games of the 2020-21 season as well. Despite managing over 95 games during his reign at RB Leipzig, Nagelsmann only started Konaté in 27 of them. Such has been the extent of the player’s injuries and recovery over the last two seasons.

As a result, the German side were not terribly upset when Liverpool triggered Konaté’s release clause and offered to pay £36 million for a player they had signed for free and had struggled for game time of late. As such, a move to Anfield may have come at the perfect time for the young defender.

“I know Liverpool and I know the supporters and those types of players that give everything for the club are always appreciated,” says Gulacsi. “The question is how much time he needs to adapt to the Premier League.”

Whether Liverpool have signed the remarkably exciting talent Rangnick once plucked from French obscurity or a defender that has since seen injury rob him of his promise remains to be seen. But we will surely find out this season.

“If he fulfils his potential then he’s going to be an important player for Liverpool in the coming years,” adds Gulacsi. “And he has all the talent and potential to do that.”

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/08/19/making-ibrahima-konate-wannabe-striker-34m-centre-back/