Two years ago, Ralf Rangnick was asked to compare a pair of young, French centre-halves who arrived at RB Leipzig on the Austrian’s watch during the summer of 2017. And Rangnick, who enjoyed two separate spells at head coach of the Bundesliga giants, could not pick a winner.
“I see Ibrahim Konate on the same level (as Dayot Upamecano),” the one-time Manchester United coach told Sport1.
“Ibrahima’s developed brilliantly here. He already has a lot of experience in the Bundesliga and on the European stage. We’re convinced of his huge potential.”
Rangnick didn’t get much wrong in the eyes of the Leipzig fanbase. But, when suggesting that Konate and Upemcano were equals, he might have encountered a bit of pushback.
Upamecano was the more fashionable of the two – the more technically-gifted. But as for the better ‘defender’, many felt that Konate was by far and away the more secure of the two. Less flashy, certainly, but more reliable. More solid.
And that haunting Champions League nightmare at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday night – Bayern Munich going down 3-0 to a rampant Manchester City – proved that, even with his 25th birthday approaching, even after two seasons in Bavaria, the kinks in Upamecano’s game remain as glaring and as obvious now as they were during his formative years in Leipzig.
Liverpool signed Ibrahima Konate after missing out on Dayot Upamecano
It is no secret that Liverpool wanted Upamecano at Anfield back in 2021; Jurgen Klopp reportedly identifying the France international as the ‘natural partner’ for Virgil van Dijk (The Mirror). Konate would arrive instead, months after Bayern completed a £37 million deal for Klopp’s number one target.
But while niggling injuries have restricted Konate’s influence of late – the Paris-born 23-year-old greatly missed in Liverpool’s slapdash defence – the feeling is that one Red Bull graduate has left another in his wake over the last 18 months or so.
It’s certainly hard to imagine Konate producing the sort of performance Upamecano tossed in on a sodden Etihad pitch. When fit, Konate has been Liverpool’s stand-out centre-half this term. One of their most consistent performers overall.
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Meanwhile, perhaps the most galling aspect of Upamecano’s second-half disintegration – coughing up possession in his own half in the build up to Bernardo Silva’s strike before spending the remainder of the game stumbling over himself like Bambi on an Olympic ice rink – is that Bayern fans have seen it all before.
“Upemecano plays ahead of Konate for France,” a clearly baffled Jamie Carragher wrote on Twitter following the former’s latest high-profile blunder.
‘A nightmare’
As L’Equipe point out in their post-game autopsy, Upamecano has been Bayern’s ‘most reliable defender in recent months’. But mistakes like this are never too far away. Julian Nagelsmann, Thomas Tuchel’s Allianz Arena was certainly not shy in calling out Upamecano in public, such was his infuriating inconsistency.
“(His) status has been shattered,” L’Equipe say, handing Upamecano a rating of 2/10 in midweek.
“His second half looked like a nightmare. One of those that marks a career. He lost the ball in the lead up to the second goal in the 70th minute. And his positioning for the third is, at best, uncertain.”
Danny Murphy was not the only one who felt that Liverpool had missed out on a ‘superb centre-half’ when Bayern confirmed Upamecano’s 45 million euro signing two years ago.
“He reads the game well, he’s a super athlete. The full package really,” the former Anfield favourite told talkSPORT. “He ticks every box you would want from a centre half.”
At the time, Konate felt like a consolation prize. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, it appears that Liverpool may have won the raffle after all.
In other news, Jamie Carragher slates Oleksandr Zinchenko after Arsenal draw at Liverpool
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