Liverpool centre-back Ibrahima Konate should be picked for France ahead of Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano.
That’s the view of former Reds defender Jamie Carragher. After watching Upamecano ship three goals against Manchester City in the Champions League last night, Carragher took to Twitter to express his surprise that Konate is below the Bayern man for his national tram.
“Upemecano plays ahead of Konate for France,” wrote the Liverpool legend, alongside a ‘mind blown’ emoji. Not the Frenchman’s best night.
Konate going from strength to strength
Upamecano is a funny player to analyse. The 24-year-old can be exceptional one minute and look completely out of his depth the next. Against Erling Haaland and City last night, he looked very much the latter.
That goes in complete contrast to his performances for France, though. Alongside Konate, the £38m signing from RB Leipzig has been hailed as a potentially generational defender back in his homeland.
Truly, Upamecano was excellent during the French side’s run to the World Cup final recently and deserved the praise he got in Qatar.
But there are simply too many nights where he doesn’t appear to know how to deal with elite forwards. Konate on the other hand has virtually never befallen that kind of fate. Not at Liverpool, anyway.
The pair both left Leipzig in 2021 for bigger clubs and have both done very well since. Whereas there are legitimate question marks over Upamecano at the top level though, Konate is going from strength to strength. The 23-year-old was absolutely superb for Liverpool during Sunday’s draw with table-topping Arsenal.
Thankfully, despite what Carragher says, France boss Didier Deschamps does appear to acknowledge this. Rather than it being a case of Konate or Upamecano for Les Bleus, Deschamps has recently installed them as a pair. A debate may rage for some time over who is better. But together, they’re pretty formidable.