Baboucarr Touray is a 19-year-old winger who plays for Manila Digger in the Philippines Football League. Touray is originally from the Gambia, where he played for Real de Banjul. He is part of a growing pipeline of African players, mostly from the Gambia, moving to the Philippines to get on the professional ladder. Touray has averaged almost two goal contributions per 90 minutes in domestic play. Manila Digger’s participation in the AFC Challenge Cup gave me the opportunity to watch him against slightly more serious opposition.
Touray is listed at 5’9″ (1.75 m) and is fairly slim. Touray’s main draw is that he is fast. He might not have elite pace on a global scale, but he is much faster than any of his current peers. He uses this to drive into open space with the ball. Touray is very much a volume dribbler when it comes to 1v1 situations, but his pace means that he gets a lot of opportunities to run at fullbacks, so he can still be quite dangerous. Unfortunately, Touray is quite inefficient at turning the good situations he creates with his ball carrying into shots. This might seem like an odd note for someone who has gotten a goal or an assist in almost every game he has played this year, but Touray is very reliant on volume to score his goals. He gets into good positions so frequently at this level that it doesn’t matter that he is inefficient. But at a higher level, this would be more of a problem. Of course, he is only 19, so over time, his decision-making and execution should improve. His strong ball carrying is undercut slightly by two factors. Firstly, he is a little bit lacking in physical strength, so he is disappointingly easy to knock off the ball. Again, this is something you would expect to improve as he gets older. His first touch is also quite loose, which leads to a lot of dispossessions. Touray gets a decent number of shots thanks to off-the-ball movement. He does a good job of getting into channels and crashing the back post. That said, he did miss some opportunities to make back-post runs and was sometimes a little slow to get into the box in the games I watched. Touray gets a decent number of headed shots for a player of his stature, but he struggled to get power on his headers in the games I watched. Touray’s passing is quite bad; he gives the ball away frequently and rarely makes a forward pass that helps break the other team down. Most of his assists are from cutbacks.
Touray’s defensive work is reasonably good. He makes quite a lot of interceptions, which naturally lead to quick counterattacks. He shows a strong willingness to track back. He is also a pretty good 1v1 defender for an attacking player, rarely being dribbled past.
Touray is averaging almost two goal contributions per game in the Philippines, so it is probably fair to say he could be playing at a higher level. How much higher is the question. Some of Touray’s biggest weaknesses, like decision-making in the final third, passing, and physical strength, are things you would expect to improve with age. However, his first touch and general technical shakiness give me cause for concern. I could see him developing into a strong player in a secondary Asian league, like the A-League or Chinese Super League. But I would have to squint quite a bit to see him going further than that. A higher level in South-East Asia seems a logical next step in the immediate term.
Target Scouting 