Seydou Dembele is a 17-year-old attacking midfielder who plays for JMG Bamako and Mali U-17.
Dembele is a small player, standing around 5’7″ (1.7 m) with a very slight build. Dembele is an outstanding ball carrier. He can carry the ball into space and beat players 1v1. He is very shifty with the ball at his feet and his quick changes of direction allow him to beat defenders. However, Dembele is quite small and can be muscled off the ball quite easily. Dembele was born in February 2008 so this is him with a relative physical advantage over his opponents, and that makes me think that physical battles are going to be a big struggle for him in senior football. Dembele’s passing is a little bit inconsistent. His vision is clearly quite good but his execution of those passes is hit and miss. This leads to a lot of situations where Dembele almost puts a player clean through on goal but just overhits or underhits the pass and the chance fizzles out. Dembele is quite good at playing quick 1-2s with teammates to advance the ball. When it comes to going for goal himself, Dembele takes a lot of shots from outside the box. Sometimes his dribbling allows him to get into high-danger areas, but this does not happen with enough consistency for my liking. Because of this, I think that it is possible Dembele’s future will be as more of a no. 8 than a no. 10.
Dembele does not stand out as an elite defensive player. But that said he does track back well and at least puts in effort. His actual defensive skills are not that high but his high work rate does lead to winning the ball back from time to time.
Dembele has some drawbacks, but he is very clearly a skilled player. I have some doubts about his physicality, but his ball carrying is very strong and he has just enough juice in the final third to keep me interested. I see him as playing at the level below the top 5 leagues.
Target Scouting 