Real Madrid have hit the jackpot with Ibrahima Konate this season. They signed the French defender on a free transfer in the summer, and it seems like that decision has been phenomenal, with the player easily being Real Madrid's best centre-back right now.
In fact, let's forget Real Madrid. Let's even forget La Liga. There are not that many better defenders than Konate in the entire world right now, and that is not an opinion - it is a fact. Konate has a brilliant partnership with Dean Huijsen, who has also been a really solid and reliable presence, but even he has not been as consistently dominant as the Frenchman right now.
There is not a single flaw to Konate's game at the moment. What he has shown at Real Madrid has been pretty good, and I'm not saying he has been perfect, but there have rarely been any mistakes from him, too.
No one is being able to dribble past Ibrahima Konate right now
In fact, he is so dominant right now that out of the 13 games he has played this season, he has only been dribbled past in two of those games. which were against Elche and Sevilla. Even in Real Madrid's biggest games of the season against Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Inter, Konate was not beaten by any of their attackers or midfielders. Even though the team lost against Atletico, no one was able to get past Konate.
It is a brilliant statistic to showcase his importance for the team just a few months into his time at Real Madrid. Konate, when he was first signed, received a mixed bag of reactions about the signing. Not many thought he was good enough, or that he was consistent enough to be the only centre-back Real Madrid end up signing, but he is now proving that the one bad season with Liverpool in his final year was nothing short of a mix of a fluke and him battling with a few personal reasons.
If we strictly talk about the way he has played for Real Madrid, Konate could not have had a better start to his career in Spain. Konate is only 27 years old, and hopefully, he is able to keep going this way, and have a brilliant time at the club in these next four to five years.
The intelligence he has defensively is going to prove that he does not always need to be physically dominant to be effective, which could go on and give him a few extra years at the top level.
Whether he gets to that stage at his best remains to be seen.
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