Kalidou Koulibaly is a great defender. No one will deny that.
What he isn’t, at least according to former Senegal international Ibrahima Ba, is a good captain.
Ahead of the current international break, it was announced the Napoli defender would take over the armband from Cheikhou Kouyaté, currently at Crystal Palace, and that didn’t go down well.
In fact, it’s his actions on the pitch that led to some criticism, as Ba explained to Les Echos, relayed by SeneNews.
He said: “Koulibaly isn’t a real real leader in the team yet. He’s soft as a captain. You don’t hear him, unlike Kouyaté.”
“You need to respect Kouyaté, who has fought a lot for Senegal. The way in which they took the captain’s armband from him isn’t elegant, and I didn’t like it.”
While he isn’t the captain at Crystal Palace, as that privilege is reserved for Luka Milivojevic, Kouyaté had captained most of his national team’s games since September 2015, and did so throughout the recent Africa Cup of Nations, which Senegal fell just short of winning after losing 1-0 to Algeria in the final.
He even retained the armband for the friendly against Brazil in October, but was stripped of the captaincy ahead of the two AFCON qualifiers this month.
The decision to do so came from the manager, Aliou Cissé, who said there weren’t any ‘special reasons’ for doing so, and Kouyaté was still in contention for the role.
Well, perhaps it’s time to change back if that’s the impression Koulibaly left after just two games.
