Not bad players but only suited to a certain style of play.
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what, good football? lol
how the fuck can anyone watch sarr and question his technique. its one of the things that make him such a talent. hes hitting weak foot half volleys clean, thats not exactly easy.
It's a weird and a bit of a wet podcast isn't it really.I listened to that podcast as well and was mystified. Then he also said he rates Hojbjerg and would have him in the starting xi…
Some good analysis, some strange takes, mostly limp voices
Captain material.
Tottenham’s Pape Sarr: ‘When I go back to Senegal people call me Roberto Carlos’
By Charlie Eccleshare
3h ago
6
On what was generally a frustrating pre-season tour of the Asia-Pacific region, one positive for new Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou was Pape Matar Sarr.
Not just his impressive performances but his upbeat energy and sunny outlook on life.
Prior to the tour, Sarr, like most of the rest of the squad, was someone Postecoglou wanted to assess and get a sense of how he would adapt to the new regime.
As it drew to a close, Postecoglou was asked whether after seeing him up close, Sarr was in his plans. “Absolutely,” he replied. “What a player. He’s a great talent.
“He never stops smiling, what else do you want from a footballer? He’s outstanding and he’s always happy. I’ve seen plenty of outstanding players who are fairly miserable.”
It was an effusive response, and one that resonated with The Athletic during an interview with Sarr that gave an insight into why he has made such a positive impression at Spurs.
Sarr is only 20 but those who have worked with him have been struck by his maturity.
We see this close up when he is asked if he has any interests outside of football. “I keep up learning about computer software engineering as I keep that ticking along for the future,” he tells The Athletic. “I may go on to take a career in software engineering or similar.”
It’s an arresting response. Sarr adds that he hasn’t yet started classes because he’s been so busy, but that he plans to soon. The Athletic resists the temptation to ask him to look at our malfunctioning laptop.
When not studying software engineering, Sarr is able to indulge in other, more relaxing hobbies, like watching basketball and Formula 1.
And he has an infectious enthusiasm. Discussing his aims for the upcoming campaign, Sarr says with a glint in his eye: “Obviously to create a better season than last year, when we finished outside the Champions League places. We want to finish well in the Premier League and hopefully win it, why not win it?”
Earlier in the year, Sarr said that: “My dream is everything! When I say everything I mean Champions League, World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations — I’ve already won that one but I want to do it again for Senegal.
Sarr faces up to Neymar while playing for Metz against PSG in April 2021 (Photo: Getty)
“African Ballon D’Or, the European one too, the lot!”
Sarr’s positivity has been a useful quality during a Spurs career that has not always been straightforward. A dynamic, forward-thinking central midfielder who is extremely highly-rated across European football, he was signed in the summer of 2021 to much fanfare. Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City were all said to be interested.
Sarr was then immediately loaned back to Metz, where he endured a mixed campaign as the team suffered relegation.
Upon rejoining Spurs last season, he didn’t feature until January and, unsurprisingly for a teenager who wasn’t playing, found it difficult to adapt to life in a new country.
Sarr explains that he needed his “big brother” Yves Bissouma to take him under his wing and help him settle on and off the pitch. He also thanks the then assistant head coach Cristian Stellini for helping him with his body position to make him even more effective.
Now, after some impressive performances last season and in pre-season, Sarr is ready to kick on and show why Spurs were so envied when they signed him for €18 million (£15.5 million) two years ago.
Sarr comes from a strong footballing family. His father Sidate is a manager in Senegal and used to be goalkeeping coach for the Senegal national team. Sarr’s elder brother Sambou plays for Union Titus Petange in the Luxembourgian top-flight, and he also has cousins who are professional players, including Sidy Sarr, once of Nimes, now at Portuguese top-flight team G.D. Chaves.
Sarr himself is a product of Senegal’s most prestigious football academy, Generation Foot. The academy, based in Dakar, has brought through many of the country’s best players in recent years, before selling them to Metz. These include Papiss Cisse, Diafra Sakho, Ismaila Sarr (no relation) and, most famously, Sadio Mane.
Sarr, so the story goes, was so good as a kid that a Belgian scout saw him juggling the ball aged nine and wanted to sign him up. He believed even Manchester City would be interested in signing the youngster.
In the end, Sarr remained in Senegal until the day after his 18th birthday in September 2020 when he signed with Ligue 1 side Metz.
Sarr was so impressive in his first season with Metz that he earned a move to Spurs. “Pape is one of the biggest talents in Europe,” the then managing director of football Fabio Paratici said upon Tottenham completing the signing. Many agreed with him, and many rival sporting directors cursed the fact that he was joining Spurs rather than their club. One sporting director at a French club told The Athletic in January 2022: “Usually when players come from Senegal, or elsewhere in Africa, they need time to adapt to European football first of all. They need time to adapt to the social life, the different food, different weather. Particularly in Metz, where it is really cold in the winter. But his time to adapt was really, really short. That is why he was most impressive, because he was ready to play well so quickly.”
Sarr’s compatriot, the Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye said of Sarr in 2021: “He’s my type of player, I admire him a lot. He has a lot of talent and he is the future of Senegal.” Sarr already has 14 senior international caps and won the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal last year.
Sarr with Spurs team-mate Harry Kane at the 2022 World Cup (Photo: Getty)
He only made one appearance at the tournament however, and during the same period was less impressive in his second season at Metz, playing in a more advanced midfield role rather than as a No 6.
In the summer of 2022 he returned to Spurs. Still a teenager, Sarr didn’t initially feature under Conte, and he admits those early months were tough. Enter Bissouma to offer a helping hand.
“It was not so easy at the start but he gave and still gives me lots of advice both on and off the pitch,” Sarr says. “I am close to Bissouma, he’s my big brother. We have a special relationship.
“Having him there to guide me was very helpful. We talked a lot and I was alone in my own place at the beginning, so he invited me over and we’d spend afternoons together around at his place. He’d talk to me a lot and helped me through those initial stages. We would spend the daytimes together and I owe him a debt of gratitude for that.
“He gave me lots of advice about life in England in general and the training regime and what to expect. It was quite hard for me coming to London from France with the changes, like the weather. Everything changed for me. He helped me with how to live well in London, where to go and how to be a citizen in England. He was a great help to me.
“We are all family here. All the players, we’re all friends, we’re all tight together.”
By the time domestic football was halted for the World Cup in November, Sarr still hadn’t made his Spurs debut. He made a couple of substitute appearances at the World Cup, including coming on at half-time in Senegal’s 3-0 defeat to England.
Sarr finally made his Tottenham debut on January 1 with a late cameo off the bench against Aston Villa, before being given a first start a week later in the FA Cup win over Portsmouth.
He impressed enough in that game to retain his place for the north London derby against Woolwich in Tottenham’s next match, selected ahead of Oliver Skipp and his not fully-fit “big brother” Bissouma. Rodrigo Bentancur was injured.
Tottenham lost the game 2-0, but Sarr did not look overawed and held his own playing alongside Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in Spurs’s typically outnumbered midfield. “I played that game as I do — with a serenity to my style,” he says, with characteristic unflappability. “It was a disappointing result but it will help me and you can only learn from those experiences. It will help me for future derbies that lie ahead. Big matches like that are something that you dream of as a player coming through and with it being a derby it gave it that certain frisson.”
Sarr’s next start came a month later, and in even more trying circumstances — away at AC Milan in the Champions League. Bentancur and Bissouma were both injured, Hojbjerg was suspended, and so Conte’s only available midfielders were Sarr and the 22-year-old Skipp. Tottenham’s season was in the balance, and their midfield hopes in a daunting last-16 tie rested on two relatively unproven youngsters.
Spurs lost 1-0 but Sarr was outstanding on the night, driving forward from midfield and after just 20 minutes demanding more from his far more experienced team-mates. Nobody on the pitch touched the ball more than him (77 times), nobody had more shots from open play than his three, nobody played more accurate long passes than his five and he was joint-second among all players involved for tackles won (five).
It was a complete performance, adding weight to the idea that no matter how big the challenge nothing seems to faze Sarr. “I really enjoyed that game with Pape,” his midfield partner Skipp said towards the end of July. “Because we played a lot in training together, and perhaps because we weren’t in the team a lot in the first part of the season we developed a real understanding of how we played together. He’d go forward and I’d cover, things like that.
“He’s so talented, sometimes you forget he’s only 20. He has loads of attributes that stand him in good stead and always a pleasure to play with people like that.”
Sarr himself doesn’t dwell on his starring role at San Siro, but says: “With all these matches, even thinking about playing at San Siro against a team like Milan is something I really enjoyed and they can only help.”
Sarr only ended up starting two more games last season — the 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Sheffield United and the 6-1 humiliation at Newcastle United. For some, this was evidence of Conte and Stellini’s reluctance to roll the dice and an overreliance on the tried and tested.
It also reflected Sarr’s inexperience and the fact that, injuries permitting, Spurs were well stocked in central midfield. There was also a feeling that Sarr still had a few things he needed to work on to elevate his game to the next level.
The Spurs coaches for instance worked with Sarr on his body position when receiving the ball: “He (Stellini) would regularly ask me to work with him on my positioning, because it facilitated that element of control, and the relation between your physical movement of your body and your positioning on the pitch and how you move and react. So it was very helpful to me and I rectified a few errors I was committing. It was a big step forward.”
Working out Sarr’s best position has also been important since he joined Spurs. In Tottenham’s rigid 3-4-3 system last season, he played 80 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder. At Metz he played primarily as a defensive midfielder in his first season but then moved further forward in his second. He ended his Metz career with a balanced 36 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder, 39 per cent in central midfield, and 20 per cent in attacking midfield.
Sarr’s midfield idols growing up were Paul Pogba and Toni Kroos, while his dad always saw him more as an attacking midfielder. At Metz, he was compared to the ball-playing deep-lying number six Miralem Pjanic.
“I immediately knew that Sarr was going to be a top player, with a very high level when it comes to reading and analysing the game,” Sarr’s academy manager at Metz and former general manager of Generation Foot Olivier Perrin said in 2021. “He is like Miralem Pjanic.”
Perrin added though that: “He can play in a system with two 10s, he can be central or box-to-box. He can be a 10, a 6… it depends on the coach.”
What does the man himself think? “Personally I have no real preference, I can happily play as a No 6 or a No 8 further forward. I’d say now more of a No 8, I’ve trained most of my career to take that No 8 position so despite having no particular preference myself, I would say I have become more of a No 8.”
Under Postecoglou, Sarr has played as one of the two No 8s in his 4-3-3 system, and made a very positive impression in the pre-season matches. Against West Ham he was part of the second-half team that almost rescued the game, and made a difference with his driving forward runs. There was one moment in particular where he nipped in to win the ball back for Spurs from a West Ham throw-in and then carried the ball up the pitch.
It foreshadowed something similar in the next game against Lion City Sailors when Sarr anticipated where the ball was dropping, managed to get there first and in doing so won his team a penalty. That was right at the end of a first half where Sarr had probably been Spurs’ best player. He showed off his passing range with a gorgeous threaded ball up the line for Dejan Kulusevski, and peppered the opposition goal with a number of long-range shots.
They were wide of the mark, but at Metz spectacular goals became something of a staple for Sarr, especially in his first season. And going further back, his long-range shooting earned him the nickname “Carlos” after the legendary Brazilian left-back as a youngster in Senegal.
Sarr has impressed Postecoglou and Spurs fans this pre-season (Photo: Getty)
“It’s a nickname my uncle gave me when I was a young boy just starting out,” Sarr explains. “He said I had a strong drive and great shot in me and that it was like Roberto Carlos. Perhaps I’m not so much known for that now, over time maybe I’ve lost that particular attribute a little bit but when I go to Senegal they still call me Carlos, especially around my quartier (neighbourhood). If someone called out Pape no one would turn their head.”
If the spectacular goals have dried up a little bit, what remains very visible is Sarr’s dynamism from midfield. This was what caught the eye of scouts during his first season at Metz, when, according to smarterscout, his carry and dribble volume put him at the 76th percentile for midfielders, even when adjusted for Premier League standard.
“He’s very good technically,” says Postecoglou. “His mobility as a midfielder, which I think is becoming more and more important in the game, is outstanding. His ability to find space, to break lines with and without the ball is very, very good for a young player and a 20-year-old.
“Those kinds of things in a midfielder in the modern game are very sought after. These days most managers now realise a lot of times the game becomes a transitional game and you need people who can cover territory and do it intelligently and he does that. He’s always in the right spaces, he’s always looking to be aggressive in his approach. Technically he’s very, very good.”
Sarr will face a lot of competition for game time this season, but he looks well set to build on that debut campaign for Spurs when he ended up with 14 appearances after not playing at all until January. Even if that means less time studying computer software engineering.
Sarr naturally is feeling optimistic. As well as those Premier League ambitions, he says: “There are the cup competitions as well. They are all on our radar as well so we will work hard to try and have some success.”
Sarr was speaking at a sustainability upcycling event with local children from Second Chance Bangkok. The players helped the children to repurpose some of last season’s shirts into new school bags.
He seems like an intelligent and ambitious young man. I’m very excited to see him given more minutes. Not going to be another Tanguy.Tottenham’s Pape Sarr: ‘When I go back to Senegal people call me Roberto Carlos’
By Charlie Eccleshare
3h ago
6
On what was generally a frustrating pre-season tour of the Asia-Pacific region, one positive for new Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou was Pape Matar Sarr.
Not just his impressive performances but his upbeat energy and sunny outlook on life.
Prior to the tour, Sarr, like most of the rest of the squad, was someone Postecoglou wanted to assess and get a sense of how he would adapt to the new regime.
As it drew to a close, Postecoglou was asked whether after seeing him up close, Sarr was in his plans. “Absolutely,” he replied. “What a player. He’s a great talent.
“He never stops smiling, what else do you want from a footballer? He’s outstanding and he’s always happy. I’ve seen plenty of outstanding players who are fairly miserable.”
It was an effusive response, and one that resonated with The Athletic during an interview with Sarr that gave an insight into why he has made such a positive impression at Spurs.
Sarr is only 20 but those who have worked with him have been struck by his maturity.
We see this close up when he is asked if he has any interests outside of football. “I keep up learning about computer software engineering as I keep that ticking along for the future,” he tells The Athletic. “I may go on to take a career in software engineering or similar.”
It’s an arresting response. Sarr adds that he hasn’t yet started classes because he’s been so busy, but that he plans to soon. The Athletic resists the temptation to ask him to look at our malfunctioning laptop.
When not studying software engineering, Sarr is able to indulge in other, more relaxing hobbies, like watching basketball and Formula 1.
And he has an infectious enthusiasm. Discussing his aims for the upcoming campaign, Sarr says with a glint in his eye: “Obviously to create a better season than last year, when we finished outside the Champions League places. We want to finish well in the Premier League and hopefully win it, why not win it?”
Earlier in the year, Sarr said that: “My dream is everything! When I say everything I mean Champions League, World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations — I’ve already won that one but I want to do it again for Senegal.
Sarr faces up to Neymar while playing for Metz against PSG in April 2021 (Photo: Getty)
“African Ballon D’Or, the European one too, the lot!”
Sarr’s positivity has been a useful quality during a Spurs career that has not always been straightforward. A dynamic, forward-thinking central midfielder who is extremely highly-rated across European football, he was signed in the summer of 2021 to much fanfare. Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City were all said to be interested.
Sarr was then immediately loaned back to Metz, where he endured a mixed campaign as the team suffered relegation.
Upon rejoining Spurs last season, he didn’t feature until January and, unsurprisingly for a teenager who wasn’t playing, found it difficult to adapt to life in a new country.
Sarr explains that he needed his “big brother” Yves Bissouma to take him under his wing and help him settle on and off the pitch. He also thanks the then assistant head coach Cristian Stellini for helping him with his body position to make him even more effective.
Now, after some impressive performances last season and in pre-season, Sarr is ready to kick on and show why Spurs were so envied when they signed him for €18 million (£15.5 million) two years ago.
Sarr comes from a strong footballing family. His father Sidate is a manager in Senegal and used to be goalkeeping coach for the Senegal national team. Sarr’s elder brother Sambou plays for Union Titus Petange in the Luxembourgian top-flight, and he also has cousins who are professional players, including Sidy Sarr, once of Nimes, now at Portuguese top-flight team G.D. Chaves.
Sarr himself is a product of Senegal’s most prestigious football academy, Generation Foot. The academy, based in Dakar, has brought through many of the country’s best players in recent years, before selling them to Metz. These include Papiss Cisse, Diafra Sakho, Ismaila Sarr (no relation) and, most famously, Sadio Mane.
Sarr, so the story goes, was so good as a kid that a Belgian scout saw him juggling the ball aged nine and wanted to sign him up. He believed even Manchester City would be interested in signing the youngster.
In the end, Sarr remained in Senegal until the day after his 18th birthday in September 2020 when he signed with Ligue 1 side Metz.
Sarr was so impressive in his first season with Metz that he earned a move to Spurs. “Pape is one of the biggest talents in Europe,” the then managing director of football Fabio Paratici said upon Tottenham completing the signing. Many agreed with him, and many rival sporting directors cursed the fact that he was joining Spurs rather than their club. One sporting director at a French club told The Athletic in January 2022: “Usually when players come from Senegal, or elsewhere in Africa, they need time to adapt to European football first of all. They need time to adapt to the social life, the different food, different weather. Particularly in Metz, where it is really cold in the winter. But his time to adapt was really, really short. That is why he was most impressive, because he was ready to play well so quickly.”
Sarr’s compatriot, the Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye said of Sarr in 2021: “He’s my type of player, I admire him a lot. He has a lot of talent and he is the future of Senegal.” Sarr already has 14 senior international caps and won the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal last year.
Sarr with Spurs team-mate Harry Kane at the 2022 World Cup (Photo: Getty)
He only made one appearance at the tournament however, and during the same period was less impressive in his second season at Metz, playing in a more advanced midfield role rather than as a No 6.
In the summer of 2022 he returned to Spurs. Still a teenager, Sarr didn’t initially feature under Conte, and he admits those early months were tough. Enter Bissouma to offer a helping hand.
“It was not so easy at the start but he gave and still gives me lots of advice both on and off the pitch,” Sarr says. “I am close to Bissouma, he’s my big brother. We have a special relationship.
“Having him there to guide me was very helpful. We talked a lot and I was alone in my own place at the beginning, so he invited me over and we’d spend afternoons together around at his place. He’d talk to me a lot and helped me through those initial stages. We would spend the daytimes together and I owe him a debt of gratitude for that.
“He gave me lots of advice about life in England in general and the training regime and what to expect. It was quite hard for me coming to London from France with the changes, like the weather. Everything changed for me. He helped me with how to live well in London, where to go and how to be a citizen in England. He was a great help to me.
“We are all family here. All the players, we’re all friends, we’re all tight together.”
By the time domestic football was halted for the World Cup in November, Sarr still hadn’t made his Spurs debut. He made a couple of substitute appearances at the World Cup, including coming on at half-time in Senegal’s 3-0 defeat to England.
Sarr finally made his Tottenham debut on January 1 with a late cameo off the bench against Aston Villa, before being given a first start a week later in the FA Cup win over Portsmouth.
He impressed enough in that game to retain his place for the north London derby against Woolwich in Tottenham’s next match, selected ahead of Oliver Skipp and his not fully-fit “big brother” Bissouma. Rodrigo Bentancur was injured.
Tottenham lost the game 2-0, but Sarr did not look overawed and held his own playing alongside Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in Spurs’s typically outnumbered midfield. “I played that game as I do — with a serenity to my style,” he says, with characteristic unflappability. “It was a disappointing result but it will help me and you can only learn from those experiences. It will help me for future derbies that lie ahead. Big matches like that are something that you dream of as a player coming through and with it being a derby it gave it that certain frisson.”
Sarr’s next start came a month later, and in even more trying circumstances — away at AC Milan in the Champions League. Bentancur and Bissouma were both injured, Hojbjerg was suspended, and so Conte’s only available midfielders were Sarr and the 22-year-old Skipp. Tottenham’s season was in the balance, and their midfield hopes in a daunting last-16 tie rested on two relatively unproven youngsters.
Spurs lost 1-0 but Sarr was outstanding on the night, driving forward from midfield and after just 20 minutes demanding more from his far more experienced team-mates. Nobody on the pitch touched the ball more than him (77 times), nobody had more shots from open play than his three, nobody played more accurate long passes than his five and he was joint-second among all players involved for tackles won (five).
It was a complete performance, adding weight to the idea that no matter how big the challenge nothing seems to faze Sarr. “I really enjoyed that game with Pape,” his midfield partner Skipp said towards the end of July. “Because we played a lot in training together, and perhaps because we weren’t in the team a lot in the first part of the season we developed a real understanding of how we played together. He’d go forward and I’d cover, things like that.
“He’s so talented, sometimes you forget he’s only 20. He has loads of attributes that stand him in good stead and always a pleasure to play with people like that.”
Sarr himself doesn’t dwell on his starring role at San Siro, but says: “With all these matches, even thinking about playing at San Siro against a team like Milan is something I really enjoyed and they can only help.”
Sarr only ended up starting two more games last season — the 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Sheffield United and the 6-1 humiliation at Newcastle United. For some, this was evidence of Conte and Stellini’s reluctance to roll the dice and an overreliance on the tried and tested.
It also reflected Sarr’s inexperience and the fact that, injuries permitting, Spurs were well stocked in central midfield. There was also a feeling that Sarr still had a few things he needed to work on to elevate his game to the next level.
The Spurs coaches for instance worked with Sarr on his body position when receiving the ball: “He (Stellini) would regularly ask me to work with him on my positioning, because it facilitated that element of control, and the relation between your physical movement of your body and your positioning on the pitch and how you move and react. So it was very helpful to me and I rectified a few errors I was committing. It was a big step forward.”
Working out Sarr’s best position has also been important since he joined Spurs. In Tottenham’s rigid 3-4-3 system last season, he played 80 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder. At Metz he played primarily as a defensive midfielder in his first season but then moved further forward in his second. He ended his Metz career with a balanced 36 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder, 39 per cent in central midfield, and 20 per cent in attacking midfield.
Sarr’s midfield idols growing up were Paul Pogba and Toni Kroos, while his dad always saw him more as an attacking midfielder. At Metz, he was compared to the ball-playing deep-lying number six Miralem Pjanic.
“I immediately knew that Sarr was going to be a top player, with a very high level when it comes to reading and analysing the game,” Sarr’s academy manager at Metz and former general manager of Generation Foot Olivier Perrin said in 2021. “He is like Miralem Pjanic.”
Perrin added though that: “He can play in a system with two 10s, he can be central or box-to-box. He can be a 10, a 6… it depends on the coach.”
What does the man himself think? “Personally I have no real preference, I can happily play as a No 6 or a No 8 further forward. I’d say now more of a No 8, I’ve trained most of my career to take that No 8 position so despite having no particular preference myself, I would say I have become more of a No 8.”
Under Postecoglou, Sarr has played as one of the two No 8s in his 4-3-3 system, and made a very positive impression in the pre-season matches. Against West Ham he was part of the second-half team that almost rescued the game, and made a difference with his driving forward runs. There was one moment in particular where he nipped in to win the ball back for Spurs from a West Ham throw-in and then carried the ball up the pitch.
It foreshadowed something similar in the next game against Lion City Sailors when Sarr anticipated where the ball was dropping, managed to get there first and in doing so won his team a penalty. That was right at the end of a first half where Sarr had probably been Spurs’ best player. He showed off his passing range with a gorgeous threaded ball up the line for Dejan Kulusevski, and peppered the opposition goal with a number of long-range shots.
They were wide of the mark, but at Metz spectacular goals became something of a staple for Sarr, especially in his first season. And going further back, his long-range shooting earned him the nickname “Carlos” after the legendary Brazilian left-back as a youngster in Senegal.
Sarr has impressed Postecoglou and Spurs fans this pre-season (Photo: Getty)
“It’s a nickname my uncle gave me when I was a young boy just starting out,” Sarr explains. “He said I had a strong drive and great shot in me and that it was like Roberto Carlos. Perhaps I’m not so much known for that now, over time maybe I’ve lost that particular attribute a little bit but when I go to Senegal they still call me Carlos, especially around my quartier (neighbourhood). If someone called out Pape no one would turn their head.”
If the spectacular goals have dried up a little bit, what remains very visible is Sarr’s dynamism from midfield. This was what caught the eye of scouts during his first season at Metz, when, according to smarterscout, his carry and dribble volume put him at the 76th percentile for midfielders, even when adjusted for Premier League standard.
“He’s very good technically,” says Postecoglou. “His mobility as a midfielder, which I think is becoming more and more important in the game, is outstanding. His ability to find space, to break lines with and without the ball is very, very good for a young player and a 20-year-old.
“Those kinds of things in a midfielder in the modern game are very sought after. These days most managers now realise a lot of times the game becomes a transitional game and you need people who can cover territory and do it intelligently and he does that. He’s always in the right spaces, he’s always looking to be aggressive in his approach. Technically he’s very, very good.”
Sarr will face a lot of competition for game time this season, but he looks well set to build on that debut campaign for Spurs when he ended up with 14 appearances after not playing at all until January. Even if that means less time studying computer software engineering.
Sarr naturally is feeling optimistic. As well as those Premier League ambitions, he says: “There are the cup competitions as well. They are all on our radar as well so we will work hard to try and have some success.”
Sarr was speaking at a sustainability upcycling event with local children from Second Chance Bangkok. The players helped the children to repurpose some of last season’s shirts into new school bags.
It does seem like he gave the interview in french though? Maybe not but I hope he’s learning some English.
TLDR:Tottenham’s Pape Sarr: ‘When I go back to Senegal people call me Roberto Carlos’
By Charlie Eccleshare
3h ago
6
On what was generally a frustrating pre-season tour of the Asia-Pacific region, one positive for new Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou was Pape Matar Sarr.
Not just his impressive performances but his upbeat energy and sunny outlook on life.
Prior to the tour, Sarr, like most of the rest of the squad, was someone Postecoglou wanted to assess and get a sense of how he would adapt to the new regime.
As it drew to a close, Postecoglou was asked whether after seeing him up close, Sarr was in his plans. “Absolutely,” he replied. “What a player. He’s a great talent.
“He never stops smiling, what else do you want from a footballer? He’s outstanding and he’s always happy. I’ve seen plenty of outstanding players who are fairly miserable.”
It was an effusive response, and one that resonated with The Athletic during an interview with Sarr that gave an insight into why he has made such a positive impression at Spurs.
Sarr is only 20 but those who have worked with him have been struck by his maturity.
We see this close up when he is asked if he has any interests outside of football. “I keep up learning about computer software engineering as I keep that ticking along for the future,” he tells The Athletic. “I may go on to take a career in software engineering or similar.”
It’s an arresting response. Sarr adds that he hasn’t yet started classes because he’s been so busy, but that he plans to soon. The Athletic resists the temptation to ask him to look at our malfunctioning laptop.
When not studying software engineering, Sarr is able to indulge in other, more relaxing hobbies, like watching basketball and Formula 1.
And he has an infectious enthusiasm. Discussing his aims for the upcoming campaign, Sarr says with a glint in his eye: “Obviously to create a better season than last year, when we finished outside the Champions League places. We want to finish well in the Premier League and hopefully win it, why not win it?”
Earlier in the year, Sarr said that: “My dream is everything! When I say everything I mean Champions League, World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations — I’ve already won that one but I want to do it again for Senegal.
Sarr faces up to Neymar while playing for Metz against PSG in April 2021 (Photo: Getty)
“African Ballon D’Or, the European one too, the lot!”
Sarr’s positivity has been a useful quality during a Spurs career that has not always been straightforward. A dynamic, forward-thinking central midfielder who is extremely highly-rated across European football, he was signed in the summer of 2021 to much fanfare. Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City were all said to be interested.
Sarr was then immediately loaned back to Metz, where he endured a mixed campaign as the team suffered relegation.
Upon rejoining Spurs last season, he didn’t feature until January and, unsurprisingly for a teenager who wasn’t playing, found it difficult to adapt to life in a new country.
Sarr explains that he needed his “big brother” Yves Bissouma to take him under his wing and help him settle on and off the pitch. He also thanks the then assistant head coach Cristian Stellini for helping him with his body position to make him even more effective.
Now, after some impressive performances last season and in pre-season, Sarr is ready to kick on and show why Spurs were so envied when they signed him for €18 million (£15.5 million) two years ago.
Sarr comes from a strong footballing family. His father Sidate is a manager in Senegal and used to be goalkeeping coach for the Senegal national team. Sarr’s elder brother Sambou plays for Union Titus Petange in the Luxembourgian top-flight, and he also has cousins who are professional players, including Sidy Sarr, once of Nimes, now at Portuguese top-flight team G.D. Chaves.
Sarr himself is a product of Senegal’s most prestigious football academy, Generation Foot. The academy, based in Dakar, has brought through many of the country’s best players in recent years, before selling them to Metz. These include Papiss Cisse, Diafra Sakho, Ismaila Sarr (no relation) and, most famously, Sadio Mane.
Sarr, so the story goes, was so good as a kid that a Belgian scout saw him juggling the ball aged nine and wanted to sign him up. He believed even Manchester City would be interested in signing the youngster.
In the end, Sarr remained in Senegal until the day after his 18th birthday in September 2020 when he signed with Ligue 1 side Metz.
Sarr was so impressive in his first season with Metz that he earned a move to Spurs. “Pape is one of the biggest talents in Europe,” the then managing director of football Fabio Paratici said upon Tottenham completing the signing. Many agreed with him, and many rival sporting directors cursed the fact that he was joining Spurs rather than their club. One sporting director at a French club told The Athletic in January 2022: “Usually when players come from Senegal, or elsewhere in Africa, they need time to adapt to European football first of all. They need time to adapt to the social life, the different food, different weather. Particularly in Metz, where it is really cold in the winter. But his time to adapt was really, really short. That is why he was most impressive, because he was ready to play well so quickly.”
Sarr’s compatriot, the Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye said of Sarr in 2021: “He’s my type of player, I admire him a lot. He has a lot of talent and he is the future of Senegal.” Sarr already has 14 senior international caps and won the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal last year.
Sarr with Spurs team-mate Harry Kane at the 2022 World Cup (Photo: Getty)
He only made one appearance at the tournament however, and during the same period was less impressive in his second season at Metz, playing in a more advanced midfield role rather than as a No 6.
In the summer of 2022 he returned to Spurs. Still a teenager, Sarr didn’t initially feature under Conte, and he admits those early months were tough. Enter Bissouma to offer a helping hand.
“It was not so easy at the start but he gave and still gives me lots of advice both on and off the pitch,” Sarr says. “I am close to Bissouma, he’s my big brother. We have a special relationship.
“Having him there to guide me was very helpful. We talked a lot and I was alone in my own place at the beginning, so he invited me over and we’d spend afternoons together around at his place. He’d talk to me a lot and helped me through those initial stages. We would spend the daytimes together and I owe him a debt of gratitude for that.
“He gave me lots of advice about life in England in general and the training regime and what to expect. It was quite hard for me coming to London from France with the changes, like the weather. Everything changed for me. He helped me with how to live well in London, where to go and how to be a citizen in England. He was a great help to me.
“We are all family here. All the players, we’re all friends, we’re all tight together.”
By the time domestic football was halted for the World Cup in November, Sarr still hadn’t made his Spurs debut. He made a couple of substitute appearances at the World Cup, including coming on at half-time in Senegal’s 3-0 defeat to England.
Sarr finally made his Tottenham debut on January 1 with a late cameo off the bench against Aston Villa, before being given a first start a week later in the FA Cup win over Portsmouth.
He impressed enough in that game to retain his place for the north London derby against Woolwich in Tottenham’s next match, selected ahead of Oliver Skipp and his not fully-fit “big brother” Bissouma. Rodrigo Bentancur was injured.
Tottenham lost the game 2-0, but Sarr did not look overawed and held his own playing alongside Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in Spurs’s typically outnumbered midfield. “I played that game as I do — with a serenity to my style,” he says, with characteristic unflappability. “It was a disappointing result but it will help me and you can only learn from those experiences. It will help me for future derbies that lie ahead. Big matches like that are something that you dream of as a player coming through and with it being a derby it gave it that certain frisson.”
Sarr’s next start came a month later, and in even more trying circumstances — away at AC Milan in the Champions League. Bentancur and Bissouma were both injured, Hojbjerg was suspended, and so Conte’s only available midfielders were Sarr and the 22-year-old Skipp. Tottenham’s season was in the balance, and their midfield hopes in a daunting last-16 tie rested on two relatively unproven youngsters.
Spurs lost 1-0 but Sarr was outstanding on the night, driving forward from midfield and after just 20 minutes demanding more from his far more experienced team-mates. Nobody on the pitch touched the ball more than him (77 times), nobody had more shots from open play than his three, nobody played more accurate long passes than his five and he was joint-second among all players involved for tackles won (five).
It was a complete performance, adding weight to the idea that no matter how big the challenge nothing seems to faze Sarr. “I really enjoyed that game with Pape,” his midfield partner Skipp said towards the end of July. “Because we played a lot in training together, and perhaps because we weren’t in the team a lot in the first part of the season we developed a real understanding of how we played together. He’d go forward and I’d cover, things like that.
“He’s so talented, sometimes you forget he’s only 20. He has loads of attributes that stand him in good stead and always a pleasure to play with people like that.”
Sarr himself doesn’t dwell on his starring role at San Siro, but says: “With all these matches, even thinking about playing at San Siro against a team like Milan is something I really enjoyed and they can only help.”
Sarr only ended up starting two more games last season — the 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Sheffield United and the 6-1 humiliation at Newcastle United. For some, this was evidence of Conte and Stellini’s reluctance to roll the dice and an overreliance on the tried and tested.
It also reflected Sarr’s inexperience and the fact that, injuries permitting, Spurs were well stocked in central midfield. There was also a feeling that Sarr still had a few things he needed to work on to elevate his game to the next level.
The Spurs coaches for instance worked with Sarr on his body position when receiving the ball: “He (Stellini) would regularly ask me to work with him on my positioning, because it facilitated that element of control, and the relation between your physical movement of your body and your positioning on the pitch and how you move and react. So it was very helpful to me and I rectified a few errors I was committing. It was a big step forward.”
Working out Sarr’s best position has also been important since he joined Spurs. In Tottenham’s rigid 3-4-3 system last season, he played 80 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder. At Metz he played primarily as a defensive midfielder in his first season but then moved further forward in his second. He ended his Metz career with a balanced 36 per cent of his minutes as a defensive midfielder, 39 per cent in central midfield, and 20 per cent in attacking midfield.
Sarr’s midfield idols growing up were Paul Pogba and Toni Kroos, while his dad always saw him more as an attacking midfielder. At Metz, he was compared to the ball-playing deep-lying number six Miralem Pjanic.
“I immediately knew that Sarr was going to be a top player, with a very high level when it comes to reading and analysing the game,” Sarr’s academy manager at Metz and former general manager of Generation Foot Olivier Perrin said in 2021. “He is like Miralem Pjanic.”
Perrin added though that: “He can play in a system with two 10s, he can be central or box-to-box. He can be a 10, a 6… it depends on the coach.”
What does the man himself think? “Personally I have no real preference, I can happily play as a No 6 or a No 8 further forward. I’d say now more of a No 8, I’ve trained most of my career to take that No 8 position so despite having no particular preference myself, I would say I have become more of a No 8.”
Under Postecoglou, Sarr has played as one of the two No 8s in his 4-3-3 system, and made a very positive impression in the pre-season matches. Against West Ham he was part of the second-half team that almost rescued the game, and made a difference with his driving forward runs. There was one moment in particular where he nipped in to win the ball back for Spurs from a West Ham throw-in and then carried the ball up the pitch.
It foreshadowed something similar in the next game against Lion City Sailors when Sarr anticipated where the ball was dropping, managed to get there first and in doing so won his team a penalty. That was right at the end of a first half where Sarr had probably been Spurs’ best player. He showed off his passing range with a gorgeous threaded ball up the line for Dejan Kulusevski, and peppered the opposition goal with a number of long-range shots.
They were wide of the mark, but at Metz spectacular goals became something of a staple for Sarr, especially in his first season. And going further back, his long-range shooting earned him the nickname “Carlos” after the legendary Brazilian left-back as a youngster in Senegal.
Sarr has impressed Postecoglou and Spurs fans this pre-season (Photo: Getty)
“It’s a nickname my uncle gave me when I was a young boy just starting out,” Sarr explains. “He said I had a strong drive and great shot in me and that it was like Roberto Carlos. Perhaps I’m not so much known for that now, over time maybe I’ve lost that particular attribute a little bit but when I go to Senegal they still call me Carlos, especially around my quartier (neighbourhood). If someone called out Pape no one would turn their head.”
If the spectacular goals have dried up a little bit, what remains very visible is Sarr’s dynamism from midfield. This was what caught the eye of scouts during his first season at Metz, when, according to smarterscout, his carry and dribble volume put him at the 76th percentile for midfielders, even when adjusted for Premier League standard.
“He’s very good technically,” says Postecoglou. “His mobility as a midfielder, which I think is becoming more and more important in the game, is outstanding. His ability to find space, to break lines with and without the ball is very, very good for a young player and a 20-year-old.
“Those kinds of things in a midfielder in the modern game are very sought after. These days most managers now realise a lot of times the game becomes a transitional game and you need people who can cover territory and do it intelligently and he does that. He’s always in the right spaces, he’s always looking to be aggressive in his approach. Technically he’s very, very good.”
Sarr will face a lot of competition for game time this season, but he looks well set to build on that debut campaign for Spurs when he ended up with 14 appearances after not playing at all until January. Even if that means less time studying computer software engineering.
Sarr naturally is feeling optimistic. As well as those Premier League ambitions, he says: “There are the cup competitions as well. They are all on our radar as well so we will work hard to try and have some success.”
Sarr was speaking at a sustainability upcycling event with local children from Second Chance Bangkok. The players helped the children to repurpose some of last season’s shirts into new school bags.
He's good now and is going to be great.
Muppets.
I'm all for good football. But managers decide their style and some players just don't fit in. Are you fed by the spoon?
theyve just played in the greatest side this country has ever seen and one of the best teams the world has ever seen. the style of play was pure football! yea they might not of been a massive benefit to tony pulis stoke side, but most football purists wouldnt.
you know the profile of player pep would of wanted for his midfield??? proper footballers! same at barca, hardly man mountains. the best technicians are usually around 5'7
Obviously not the same level atm but when I watch Sarr, I see Bellingham and vice versa.
Immense midfield performance by Yaya Sarr, very mature for a 20-year-old.
nailed on starter! hes put it beyond doubt today! proper midfielder. 20 years old is a joke
