Adama Traore is called up for international duty but how far can he go?
This afternoon Adama Traore was called up to the U21 Spain side.
It’s first time the former Barcelona academy product has been called up for the national side and his brilliant recent form clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed.
So far this season Adama Traore has scored four goals and registered nine assists in 29 games, however only 21 of them have been starts and the majority of his game time has come since late December when Middlesbrough replaced Garry Monk with Tony Pulis.
Since Pulis has been in charge Traore has started 14 consecutive games, the longest run in his career, picking up six MOTM awards in that time according to statistic based football site WhoScored.According to the site Traore has averaged a rating of 7.56/10 throughout the season but he has picked up five 9/10 ratings since Pulis has been in charge.
The call-up for Traore is a big deal, not just for him but also for the club.
The call-up shows he’s on the national sides radar and is a player they clearly see has potential to play for the first team but for Middlesbrough it mean’s Traore’s value has risen.
Player’s like Traore who can beat a man with such explosive pace as well as having raw strength and the ability to dribble are near impossible to find these days.
The argument with Traore was that he would never full-fill his potential due to his questionable decision making as well as having a poor end product, however things look to be changing as Traore has final mastered the art of being a complete winger.
No player across Europe’s top five leagues has completed more successful take-ons then Adam Traore.
Traore has completed 164 take-ons this season, thats more Messi (138), Neymar (139) and Eden Hazard (128).
Now Adama doesn’t play at the highest level at the moment but when he did last season in just 27 games (1550 minutes) he completed 136 take-ons, an impressive stat when considering he was against some of the Worlds best players.
Consistency has been another thing fans would question about Traore but that’s something else he’s finally added to his game in recent months and it doesn’t look like hes gonna stop putting in top class performances anytime soon.
This month Traore was handed the PFA fan’s player of the month for February after a string of impressive performances.
Traore was handed the accolade after he put in some fine performances scoring two goals and grabbing one assist in four games.
If Traore can keep up his performances from now to the end of the season and help Boro get promoted then there’s no reason why he can’t go the the very top and become a potentially world class player, especially if he can impress on international duty.
Below you can watch some highlights of Adama Traore this season:
Credit to The Times for imagery used in this article.