Diadie Samassekou – Red Bull Salzburg’s midfield virtuoso

Diadie Samassekou once struggled to adapt to leaving home for the boarding school of the JMG Academy but has now become one of the most sought-after young midfielders in Europe. Mali have invested in building structures for the education and development of young players as this strategy has paid dividends in recent years. Mali finished third at the U20 World Cup in 2015 with a team including Adama Traore and Samassekou as other young players like Yves Bissouma and Amadou Haidara have fleshed out their National Team. Samassekou is midfield mastermind who will have no shortage of suitors this summer after attracting heavy interest in the past few transfer windows.

The surefooted Malian at the base of the Salzburg midfield provides a calming presence for a young side in the defensive and attacking aspect of his team’s game. Samassekou is cleverly positioned in the zone in between his widely-split centre-backs as Andre Ramalho can play vertical passes to his pivote to recycle the ball past the opposition’s wave of pressure. The 23-year-old is talented at receiving the ball, resetting his feet and body shape quickly before playing the ball onto a teammate.

Samassekou was a box-to-box midfielder for Mali during the U20 World Cup and has now developed into a fully-fledged deep-lying specialist as his ability to start intricate passing moves from deep is exemplary. He excels at rolling beautifully weighted passes in between the lines as he demands possession from his centre-backs and filters it into attacks. In a match against LASK Linz, he played a pass into Schlager who laid it off for Haidara to have a shot on goal as playing direct passes from deep leading to the creation of opportunities is his speciality.

Samassekou also adapts well when he is unsettled as in the Europa League last season, Lazio pushed Sergi Milinkovic Savic against him. The Malian lost the ensuing aerial battles with the towering Serb as Samassekou adapted to his task well, winning his 50/50 duels while showing a heightened sense of space and teammates’ positions to work simple passes out of pressure. Red Bull Salzburg seek to stretch the field when they are in possession, but their 4-4-2 diamond will seek to deny the opposition space when they are out of possession. This results in the midfielder having to leave his position in certain situations as teammates will always fill in for him if he charges out of position to mark an opposition player.

Samassekou is also a very clean tackler as he is assured in his challenges as he is adept at stretching to poke possession out of the grasp of an opposition player. Salzburg’s style of play can be physically gruelling, but the young midfielder is accustomed to engaging in physical contests. He also shows a sound sense of positioning and anticipation to make crucial interceptions as when he can get the ball under his control, he can smartly shift the ball into the next attacking wave.

There was a moment in Salzburg’s home match against Napoli in the Europa League where he slipped in possession with an opposition player marking him, only to calmly stand up, shield the ball and play it to his centre-back. Samassekou’s calm and simplicity in possession define him as a deep-lying midfield playmaker as he rarely looks for the difficult pass, preferring to play the ball vertically or threading a pass through the lines. An example of him executing a more elaborate and well-weighted chip would be against Vitoria Guimaraes in last season’s Europa League group-stages as he lobbed an inch-perfect pass for Valon Berisha to slide and apply the finish to level the score at 1-1.

The 23-year-old Malian is capable of pinging chips into attackers while pushing forward and winning the ball high in counter-pressure. He is accomplished at engaging in attacking combinations when he is positioned in the opposition half as against Napoli, he received a pass from Andreas Ulmer in the half-space before executing a backheel to give his fullback a crossing opportunity that was blocked.

Samassekou is proficient at passing with both feet which allows him to navigate out of high-pressure situations as in a match against Borussia Dortmund last season, he played a pass to his centre-back with his right-foot while facing the right flank before taking on a pass from the centre-back, to play a pass to his right fullback with his left foot. He also adroitly skips past opposition players to drive the ball forward and play balls into the pockets. Even though Samassekou has harnessed an element of simplicity to his game, his ability to always find solutions in the middle as opposed to working the ball out wide is stirring as it allows Salzburg to work their combinations in the middle and create quicker avenues to goals.

Samassekou is growing into a reliable player for his country too ahead of the African Cup of Nations in the summer. The midfielder initially frustrated Malian Head Coach, Alain Giresse with his lack of fitness for his international commitments but the Frenchman recently declared that the midfielder is ‘growing up’ as he has earned the trust of his coaches and peers at club and international level. The midfielder has grown game by game at club level under the tutelage of Marco Rose as he has earned serious interest from the likes of Paris Saint Germain, AS Roma and other clubs in elite European leagues.

Samassekou grew up idolising Andres Iniesta as the ambitious 23-year-old has attracted flattering glances from Europe’s elite as moves have been mooted to clubs rooted all over the European continent. Since January 2017, Red Bull Salzburg has made an approximate of 130 million euros in sales as their production line of talent is enduring in the modern-day European market. The intelligent Malian midfield general would represent a bargain as a deep-lying playmaking and defensive midfield specialist as many clubs would be remiss to not to part with a paucity of capital for a huge return in a highly skilled young player.