Ousmane Diomande is being linked with numerous Premier League clubs this summer. Here, we look at what he’ll offer if he does arrive on English shores.
He almost certainly didn’t know it at the time, as he and his Mafra teammates trudged off at full-time having lost 3-0, but a November 2022 Taça de Portugal meeting with FC Porto changed the life of a young Ousmane Diomande.
Then 18 years old, Diomande featured at the heart of the defence for the Portuguese second-tier side as they aimed to cause a huge upset.
That proved to be beyond them collectively. But, as the story goes, Sporting CP had scouts in attendance and were impressed with what they saw in the young defender, despite Mafra’s defeat.
According to A Bola, the scout’s report eventually found its way to Ruben Amorim, Sporting’s head coach, who was “immediately enchanted”. By the end of January 2023, Diomande was joining Sporting in a deal worth an initial €7.5 million, his loan at Mafra from Midtjylland cut short as a new adventure began in Lisbon.
Diomande’s rise from a relative nobody to one of the most talked-about young centre-backs in Europe was swift; he hadn’t even played for Midtjylland’s senior team before earning them a small fortune, and then it didn’t take him long to nail down a place in the Sporting starting XI. Links with some of the continent’s biggest clubs started to swirl in the 2023-24 season, less than a year after he’d first started playing top-tier football.
But Diomande isn’t a player in a rush. While transfer rumours have been rife for him over the past two years, reports out of Portugal have consistently provided clues of the young defender’s patience and maturity, with the idea of jumping ship at the first call of a major club seemingly far from his mind.
As such, his development has been allowed to continue in a stable environment that’s guaranteed him lots of game time and provided an opportunity to take on greater responsibility.
The latter point is particularly relevant to the 2024-25 season. When Sebastián Coates – the Sporting defence’s elder statesman at the time – left last summer to return to Uruguay, the club were left without the central cog of their back three. They’d either need to bring in someone else or shuffle the pack somewhat.
Their decision was to make Diomande the leader of the back three, shifting him into a central position. It was seen as a considerable gesture and show of faith by Amorim, with it widely accepted that playing as a wide centre-back can be significantly different to being in the middle of a back three.
There are those who believe he went on to have his most consistent campaign to date in 2024-25, again named in the Primeira Liga’s team of the season after helping Sporting retain their title despite a bit of a wobble initially after Amorim left to join Manchester United.
Not that Diomande’s season was perfect. A difficult spell around February and March showed he wasn’t infallible.
On 7 February, towards the end of a 1-1 draw at Porto, Diomande and Fábio Vieira jostled at a corner. Seemingly annoyed by something in the moment, the Sporting player lowered his head as if to confront the Porto midfielder, who dramatically threw himself to the floor. A red card was subsequently shown to Diomande.
While the two-match suspension was later reduced to a single game on appeal, with the referee retrospectively acknowledging there was no excessive force involved, it still left questions about Diomande’s temperament.
Then, in his first game back from suspension, Diomande (probably inadvertently) struck an opponent in the face while grappling at a corner to concede a penalty; and seven minutes later, he was sent off for a mistimed lunge. The match ultimately ended level despite Sporting leading AVS 2-0 before Diomande conceded that 71st-minute penalty.
And finally, a few weeks on in a match against Famalicão, Diomande conceded another penalty. This time, after an opponent met a cross with a header, the defender’s elbow caught the forward on the head with some force.
It could be argued this was mostly just a run of bad luck, as neither penalty concession appeared to be the result of malice, and his coach – Rui Borges – came out staunchly in his defence.
Speaking after the Famalicão game, he said: “Ousmane had a great game, regardless of the penalty, which was unfortunate. He is clearly a different central defender and he will make mistakes sometimes; it is part of his growth, as he is young. He will make mistakes, we have to understand that and support him, even though sometimes he makes mistakes and we have to call him out on it, and we will. But it is part of his growth, which has been rapid and he has reached a very high level very quickly. His qualities are superb; he is a central defender who will be talked about for years, I have no doubt.”
Indeed, as already touched upon, Diomande’s ascension has been pretty abrupt, and for the most part he’s handled it exceptionally well, from making the step up, to quickly becoming a regular and then essentially taking over the leadership of the defence.
A few momentary indiscretions aside, Diomande’s been a commanding and reliable presence at the back for Sporting. Comfortable on the ball, a forceful and aggressive defender when he needs to be, and an accurate passer, he very much fits the bill as a modern centre-back.
Throughout his time at Sporting, Diomande has been well regarded for being comfortable progressing the ball with it at his feet. There was some concern that this side of his game might be impacted negatively by his move from a wider role to the central figure in the back three, and there certainly has been a change in his game here.
For instance, in 2022-23 he averaged 6.2 progressive carries taking the ball at least 10 metres upfield; that went down to 3.7 in 2023-24 and then 2.8 in 2024-25.
But it’s still a feature that remains fairly prominent. After all, among centre-backs to play at least 900 minutes in the Primeira Liga in 2024-25, Diomande’s 11.0 progressive carries (moving the ball at least 5m upfield) per 90 was the fourth most, while he led the way for such movements measuring between 5m and 10m (8.2).
The below example shows him going well beyond 10m, eventually getting a shot away – the point being that this is what he is capable of technically, rather than it being the kind of situation he hunts for.
Diomande recovers possession and bursts up the left flank… He cuts in from the left, darts beyond the right-back… He then shoots harmlessly wide.Diomande also ranked first among all Primeira Liga players for general carries (moving at least 5m with the ball) with 598, and he was as high as fourth for total distance progressed upfield in possession (2,872.6m).
Of course, it can be easy to read too much into some carrying stats, particularly for defenders. Let’s not forget, centre-backs generally operate in less-congested areas of the pitch, especially if playing in a possession-dominant team such as Sporting, and the team’s style also has a direct influence on how much of the ball they see.
So, just because a centre-back tallies a lot of carries, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a great player – but in the case of Diomande, it does reflect a broad comfort and assuredness in possession, and his maturity helps in this regard.
There aren’t many examples, then, of Diomande dribbling past a pressing centre-forward in 2024-25. It’s not that this would be beyond him if he needed to – just look at the example below…
Diomande takes the ball out from the back, shields the ball and shapes to turn back towards goal… …but he shifts back to go left and breezes away from the forward, who commits a foul.But it’s more that do you really want your central defender trying to dribbling their way out of a press all the time?
While such situations might have arisen a little more often when playing as the right-sided centre-back, in 2024-25, he’s allowed himself to be patient and avoided taking too many risks.
Part of that explains his very high passing accuracy. Among players to attempt at least 470 open-play passes in the Primeira Liga in 2024-25, Diomande’s completion rate of 93.6% was the highest. Similarly, his average successful pass length (18.1m) being below the league average for centre-backs (18.7m) also supports the idea that he played safe most often.
But that’s not a bad thing. In most back threes, it’s the wider centre-backs who have the greater responsibility for ball progression. Diomande’s remit was to be assured and reliable, not a maverick risk-tasker, and he generally did his job to good effect.
And yet, Diomande’s long-range passing ought to be highlighted. His 111 in open play (116 including set-pieces) wasn’t a massive figure, with as many as 37 nominal centre-backs recording more, but it’s certainly a skill he could count on.
His completion rate with open-play long passes was 62.2% (60% including set-pieces), which saw him rank sixth among the 91 players who tallied at least 100 long balls. So, while he clearly looked to play the odds most of the time when distributing, Diomande’s long passing is evidence of the technical ability that underpins his game, while it also indicates the range and vision he possesses.
But there’s obviously a chance that, if Diomande moves this summer, he could find himself in a team that isn’t quite as dominant as Sporting are these days. If recent speculation linking him with Crystal Palace proves prescient, he’d find himself in a team who had the fourth-smallest share of possession on average in the Premier League in 2024-25 (42.6%).
That’s not necessarily a problem. But, while both teams play with a back three, there’ll be a philosophical difference in the style of play, and that could require some adaptation – though you could argue that’s the case with most players to some degree, as no two teams play exactly the same way, do they?
Nevertheless, in the hypothetical example of a move to Palace, Diomande would almost certainly find himself with more actual defensive work on his hands.
It’s difficult to translate defensive stats meaningfully from one team to another when their league context is vastly different. But for all intents and purposes, Diomande’s defensive quality has shone while he’s been at Sporting.
He takes quite an aggressive approach to winning the ball back. It’s common to see him poking the ball away from attackers who are looking to receive with their back to goal. He likes to engage attackers physically, closing space down quickly and grappling with them as he looks to make the most of his strength.
But he’ll also allow opponents a chance to bring the ball under control while anticipating a loose touch, before either jinking in front of them or taking advantage of them being unbalanced.
Diomande stands off his man but is alert in case of a heavy touch… The touch is heavy, allowing Diomande to use his superior pace and strength to nip in. Diomande hangs back, confident his opponent won’t be able to bring the high ball down and get past him… The Braga player manages to get the ball under control, but Diomande is close enough to muscle in and poke the ball away.Helping him in these situations is Diomande’s decent turn of pace, which also makes him effective when challenging attackers on the run, perhaps unsurprisingly so given his previous role as a wide centre-back.
To give a better indication of a player’s effectiveness in one-v-one duels, we can look at ‘true tackles’, which is a sum of successful tackles (where possession is regained or when the ball goes out of play and is safe), challenges lost (where a player attempts a tackle and doesn’t connect with the ball) and fouls when attempting a tackle.
While Diomande’s 66.7% success rate in ‘true tackles’ was decent and saw him rank eighth among Primeira Liga centre-backs in 2024-25 (40+ ‘true tackles’), his output was more impressive when looking specifically at how often opposing attackers got past him.
He was dribbled past just six times from 54 possible scenarios, equating to 11.1%; only two players were beaten in a smaller proportion of these situations than Diomande, who’s proven himself a tough and persistent operator at the back.
Granted, Diomande’s on-pitch disciplinary issues in the second half of 2024-25 might have raised some concerns, and his zealous approach to winning back possession when engaging forwards potentially lends itself to being penalised.
There’s also more than a hint of risk when buying players from the Primeira Liga. Being a success in Portugal is by no means a guarantee they’ll be able transfer their form seamlessly to one of the bigger leagues, with the graphic below highlighting the disparity between the Primeira and other competitions.
But there’s undoubtedly a lot to like about Diomande, who appears well-equipped to handle the physical side of the game as well as being able to contribute in the way many centre-backs are now expected to in possession.
Whether his next step takes him all the way to a club like Real Madrid, or Chelsea, both of whom are apparently interested, or Crystal Palace or Newcastle remains to be seen. But Diomande’s future at Sporting looks limited, and with good reason.
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