Alynho Haidara is a 16-year-old striker who plays for Cote d’Ivoire U-17.
Haidara is around 6’0″ (1.82 m) with a reasonably muscular build. Haidara finished the tournament as joint top scorer, though it should be noted that a few of his goals were penalties. Haidara likes to drop off into midfield to receive the ball. His passing and distribution are quite strong. He has a wide range of passing and often plays diagonal balls in behind the fullbacks for his wingers. Haidara has some decent dribbling ability, though his first touch is a bit on the inconsistent side. He is shifty, however it sometimes takes a little bit too long for him to get the ball out of his feet. It’s not that uncommon for young players, who may have recently had a growth spurt, to be a little bit clumsy so this may be something that improves over the next couple of years. Haidara’s shot selection is also a little bit inconsistent. Despite often dropping deep, he also gets in behind defences quite a bit thanks to his speed and strong off-the-ball movement. This leads to some high danger chances. However, he also fires off a lot of garbage from well outside the box or from wide areas. Haidara is quite strong in the air. He can jump very high and that makes him a relatively big threat on crosses. His off-ball movement can also make him effective in the box. So he does get high-danger chances, it’s just that there are a lot of ill-advised long-range shots as well. He is also quite agile, which allows him to pull off unconventional and improvised shots.
Defensively, I would not say that Haidara stood out. In theory, his physical profile should lend itself to defensive contributions as Haidara is reasonably quick and strong. However, these contributions remained largely theoretical at this tournament.
I’m not left totally convinced that Haidara has top-5 league potential. His decision-making and defensive contributions would certainly need to improve. But he does have a skillset that is likely to see him get a move to Europe. If I had to bet I would say he could play for a decent team in Belgium or the Netherlands.
Target Scouting 