PROFILE | Dilane Bakwa – one of BlueCo’s most prized assets | OneFootball

Dilane Bakwa was one of the first signings for Strasbourg in the BlueCo era and has since established himself as a first-team regular on the right wing. So far this season, he’s played over 97% of the available minutes for Le Racing and has two goals and five assists to his name in what has been an otherwise middling season for the club from Alsace.

Bakwa came through the youth academy at Bordeaux, making his debut for the first team off the bench in a 0-0 draw to Nice, just over a month after his 18th birthday. He went on to make seven further appearances off the bench over the course of the 20-21 season. After making little progress to assert himself in the Bordeaux first team in the 21-22 season, it was in 2022, after Bordeaux’s relegation to Ligue 2 that Bakwa finally got his shot at regular senior first-team football.

As a versatile winger, with the ability to play on both sides of the striker, Bakwa scored five and assisted eight, helping Bordeaux to a third-place finish, despite the off-the-pitch nightmares for Les Girondins. It would be these issues that would ultimately spell the end for Bakwa and Bordeaux; the club needed to raise funds to ensure its future, and Bakwa, an exciting young talent was one of their prized assets. Strasbourg paid Bordeaux a combined €20m for Bakwa, as well as equally promising defensive-midfielder Junior Mwanga in the summer of 2023.

A path to Chelsea for Bakwa?

Bakwa would best be described as a true creative winger. Being naturally left-footed, he likes to come inside to create space for other attackers to exploit. Bakwa plays a lot like Tottenham’s Dejan Kulusevski in this way, except with a little more explosive pace to beat his man when necessary. The French U21 international’s 4.62 shot-creating actions per 90 puts him in the top 25% of wingers in Europe’s top five leagues.

With a market value now of between €10-15m, Bakwa could be the perfect signing this January for a club in need of a creative spark. However, given the ambitious project at RCSA and the path to Chelsea, he will likely stay in Alsace. Behdad Eghbali has shown himself to be insistent on retaining players, notably Ismaël Doukouré. One can assume that he would be determined not to lose Bakwa, perhaps the most promising player in this youthful RCSA side, even if his short-term prospects of playing in the stacked Chelsea forward line look slim.

GFFN | James Evans