Born in Djibouti, Koba Koindredi spent most of his formative years at ES Fréjusienne and EFC Fréjus Saint-Raphaël before moving to RC Lens. After his time in France, the midfielder ended his formative years at Valencia CF, where he made his first-team debut before loan spells at Real Oviedo and GD Estoril-Praia, where he is currently. At the international level, Koba represented the French youth teams at U17 and U19 level.
From a physical point of view, Koba Koindredi is a morphologically mesomorphic player of medium to tall stature. His execiton speed is very good – I’ll emphasise this when I talk about the offensive side of the game. The player’s acceleration contributes to his travelling speed, but as he is an intelligent player and is well positioned most of the time, there are few moments when he reaches his peak speed. Also due to his physiology, Koindredi is successful in one-on-one duels, both offensively and defensively, because he shows he knows how to use his body – with the ball, he protects it well by expanding his physique; without the ball, he performs well containments to break tackles at the right time.
In attack, the French midfielder is a delight. From the moment he prepares to receive the ball to the moment he releases it, Koba Koindredi gets every detail right. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, Koba is an intelligent player. As such, his positional sense is very acute. As well as always being well positioned, he knows how and when to show himself to receive the ball, whether it’s behind the first line of pressure or picking up play from the centre-backs. When it comes to receiving the ball, his ability to direct support when he comes on as a free man is notable. When this isn’t the case, he’s either able to turn under pressure from the back, or he’s able to give the ball back to his colleague who’s facing the ball with his first touch.
Also offensively, when he appears as a free man, Koba stands out for the quality of his decisions – he’s constantly craning his neck to get information out of the game. Normally, when he has space, he shows his ability to progress. In the event of an opponent’s containment, he’s successful in offensive duels, where he’s able to get more than one player out of the way due to his speed of execution – he feints with very good speed and always with the ball glued to his foot. He’s also capable of linking up and then receiving further forward – the breakaway moves he makes after the pass always depend on how balanced the team is, so there are times when he passes and keeps the game balanced for GD Estoril-Praia by not attacking the space. When he eliminates the pressure on him, he uses deep passes to his teammates to attack the space. In this regard, the highlight is his precision in placing passes behind the defensive line with the right tension on the ball. He’s also surgical in passing into the space between the centre-back and the fullback of the opposing defensive line. As he’s stronger at passing than arriving, there are few moments when you see Koba Koindredi breaking into the final third of the attack. The midfielder prefers to launch and keep the midfield balanced, while at the same time preparing the defensive transition well.
Defensively, Koba Koindredi is a player who demonstrates that he respects the principles inherent to that moment. As I’ve already mentioned, he’s an intelligent player from a positional point of view, and when it comes to defending he retains that characteristic: he always tries to close off the central corridor and doesn’t make the mistake of running wildly and unbalancing the team. When it comes to containment, he shows that he knows how to set up support and use his body to make a good tackle – the next time he’s able to take the ball out of pressure zones and play simple. In defensive transition, which he does at a good speed, his ability to run to the right place, balance the team, and re-establish the current defensive order is obvious – only once he has recovered his position does he try to win the ball back through containment or help through defensive cover.
In the short term, Koba Koindredi’s future lies in establishing himself as a pillar of GD Estoril-Praia’s midfield. However, this is a Herculean task given the quality of the other players in this sector. If he succeeds, his ability to work in training will be evident, as he has more than proven in the game. In the medium to long term, the player should settle either in a team from the main European leagues that are fighting for a place in European competitions, or in a team from Europe’s peripheral leagues that are fighting for titles domestically – for example, AFC Ajax, Celtic FC or SL Benfica.
Target Scouting 