When a player attracts the attention of Manchester City, Arsenal and Southampton in the same transfer window, there is no doubt that he is someone with a special talent. And this is the case of Ousmane Diomande, the 19-year-old centre-back who is yet to land in the Premier League, as he was signed by Sporting CP for €7.5 million, making him the second most expensive signing of the winter transfer window in Portugal (behind only Andreas Schjelderup to Benfica).
Diomande started his career at Olympic Sport Abobo in Côte d’Ivoire. After excelling there, he moved to Midtjylland U19, where he played in the UEFA Youth League and was already showing great potential, playing comfortably at both RCB and LCB — offering plenty to his team’s progressions.
For the start of the 22/23 season, FC Midtjylland (a team where he never made his professional debut) loaned him to CD Mafra in the Portuguese Second Division intending to accumulate valuable minutes for his development. However, Diomande’s strong performances in the team attracted the attention of some of the biggest clubs of today. Eventually, his loan spell was cut short and he was sold to Sporting CP and became the seventh most expensive sale in the Danish club’s history.
There are high hopes for the Ivorian player, who seems to have enough basis to play at the elite level in the short term. Therefore, here we will do an analysis of all the details of his game with special emphasis on his performance with CD Mafra in the first part of the season and what he could offer in the short term to Rúben Amorim’s Sporting CP tactics. This will be a tactical analysis in form of an scout report.
Capacity for progression in the build-up phase
Currently, centre-backs are evaluated for their defensive and offensive attributes almost equally. In the era of “short build-up vs high pressing”, a CB who has a high resistance to pressure and sufficient passing range to break lines and progress is indispensable in Europe’s top teams.
Ousmane Diomande has that potential. He is a player who can connect with teammates in different areas through different types of passing. He often tries to break lines of pressure, as he is quick to spot players between the lines or with enough space to turn and make attacks more dynamic, but his speciality is long passes. At CD Mafra, a team with good mechanisms on restarts to leave CBs with time-space to pass and facing several opponents with uncoordinated mid-low blocks, the Ivorian player’s tense passing was one of the team’s main methods of progression.
One of the most differential factors of Diomande’s long passes is the tension. This is what often makes the passes really effective. A pass that is too high slows down the dynamic of the play by the time it takes to fall, and this translates into more time for the opposing defender to intercept. However, passes with ideal power are much more complex to defend and give the potential receiver an advantage.
The Sporting CP player can deliver such passes with both feet. Although he is right-footed, he has the dominance of his weaker leg to execute more comfortably when playing as a LCB. He can even use this resource in his natural position after beating an opponent by cutting inside, as he registered an assist in the first part of the season. The tension of these deliveries is lower, but they are still damaging against high defences.
When passing, Ousmane Diomande shows good decision-making. He has very aggressive intentions when moving forward, so his first option is often to break lines, but he also knows when the best option is to give routine passes or connect with wide teammates. In this way, he is a great fit in teams that are always looking to keep players open on the wing, as Diomande’s passing range allows him to activate them frequently.
It is important to take into consideration that the ex-CD Mafra player is not particularly good just because of the long passes he makes, but because of the wide variety of passes, he dominates, his interpretation of situations (to know with who, when and where to link up) and the way in which he executes. In these cases, more important than the “what” is the “how”. In short, it is not just about the passes he makes, but the way he makes them.
One big difference between Diomande and the average centre-backs of his generation today is that the Sporting CP player looks really confident in his passing abilities. And this is evident in the team dynamic. The movements in front of the line of the ball are quicker and more fluid; his teammates feel confident that they can receive in different areas, as their CB looks really confident in what he does. They don’t predispose their play to what they should do in the case of a loss, but to their next decision after receiving.
Diomande’s confidence in his game also allows him to carry the ball to attract pressure and link up with teammates behind opposing midfielders. His technique is not particularly outstanding when moving forward with the ball, as he occasionally takes a few erratic touches, so he tends to cover short distances close to midfield. There he only needs to spot small gaps in the opponent’s lines to filter his passes, which are usually very powerful (even when they are on the ground) and directed towards the strong leg of the teammate.
Positioning is also key to his team’s progress. Ousmane has a good understanding of what his team needs: a CB who goes back a few metres to receive passes and restart the play or a CB who attacks open spaces (even behind the first line of pressure) to carry the ball a few metres and dynamise possession.
In the latter scenario, the player shows good control to move forward and an ideal composure to associate while on the move. In this sense, his arrival in Rúben Amorim’s team is particularly interesting, as he is a coach with very interesting proposals in the build-up phase, rotating CBs and allowing them to attack spaces frequently to progress.
Only in his first few appearances with Sporting CP, Diomande has understood some of these dynamics well, which will be of great help to his development. The technical attributes to get forward are not exactly what makes CBs stand out in possession, but the way they use them and how they integrate into their team’s offensive dynamics in order to exploit these resources. This is the difference between central defenders who pass vertically and those who are able to move their team forward.
High defence
The €7.5 million Sporting CP paid for Ousmane Diomande is also because he is a centre-back with very good defensive attributes to defend high. He has the potential to be really dominant several metres outside his area, but they still need to polish his aggressiveness and know when temporising is the best option. However, his current level is good enough to adapt to this type of defensive approach.
Ousmane’s explosive initial burst allows him to get the edge on his opponents when he comes out of his zone in order to anticipate or intercept passes. As is the case with many young CBs with similar characteristics, he prioritises anticipating rather than not turning his opponents and this leads to him being beaten on several occasions. In Portugal’s second division, the scales tipped in his favour in the first part of the season, but to excel at the elite level he will have to polish his defensive decision-making much more.
At present, he is showing very good concepts to prevent his opponents from receiving comfortably without committing a foul. He even has very good body feints to make the opponent change the direction of his run or brake and he recovers the ball. He could use this resource a lot more.
The objective is probably not that Diomande stops anticipating so often, but that he knows how to decide when not to do so. That “small” detail separates the elite CBs from the rest. In his case, he not only manages to outperform his opponents in this type of situation by being quicker over short distances and having aggressive intentions off-the-ball but also because of his good positioning to guard the back of the midfield line and his physicality.
At the age of 19, Ousmane has a mesomorphic build with developed musculature that gives him a lot of power and stability in physical contact. But all this is enhanced by the good body positions he dominates to get the edge on his opponents. He uses his upper body in a very intelligent way to protect the ball from his opponents or to boost himself from them to get to the ball first. His size and strength make him very difficult to displace.
In addition, one of the most interesting characteristics of this player is that he has good technique to control the balls he anticipates. He does not look to deflect or leave second balls, but rather to direct his steals and then link up with a team-mate or directly initiate counter-attacks with his progressive passes.
1v1 duels and in-box defence
Ousmane Diomande is a player with good defensive concepts in 1v1 duels. He varies his positions according to the characteristics of the ball holder and the area of the pitch in which he is, inviting the opponent to move towards the less comfortable spaces for him.
In these situations, he also excels at using his upper body and body feints to win the ball back. Diomande makes sure to control his opponents with his tensed arms, so he will push off opponents or slow down their runs (or both) to steal the ball.
He looks very confident coming out of the zone and taking on 1v1 duels. He is also a player with the gestural speed to recover if he is beaten and has great reach in his lower body to steal.
Defending in the box is another situation where the current Sporting CP player shows interesting concepts to intercept crosses. He maintains a high level of concentration to scan his surroundings and also knows how to use his arms to always keep his opponent referenced.
In this regard, although Diomande often wins aerial duels, he could improve his heading technique for more effective clearances. On many occasions, he directs his clearances towards the middle, which allows the opponent to have a better chance to shoot. For the short term, the Ivorian player should improve his concepts to direct his headers to the wings or teammates in areas that allow him to clear.
Conclusion
After being signed by Sporting CP, hopes are high that Ousmane Diomande will become one of the most dominant centre-backs of his generation. He has well-developed attributes in all phases of the game, but still has a range of improvement that at 19 years of age is quite positive: he can offer a great level at present, but he can still be better.
He has all the conditions to adapt to the most common ideas of play in most elite teams, which seek to build with CBs in the first phase and then defend high pressing in the opposition half.
The next few years will be of great importance in his development and he is in an ideal context to improve his game. Ousmane Diomande’s career is undoubtedly on the right track, so it is no surprise that several Premier League teams are keeping him in their plans for the short term.
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