Boulaye Dia: the former Senegalese electrician from Salernitana, who he is and how he plays

From our correspondent Iacopo Iandiorio

May 1
– NAPLES

At the San Paolo everyone was waiting for the Messiah from Olusosun, a dormitory district and dump in Lagos, and instead the striker from La Zup, a popular district of Oyonnax, a French municipality on the border with Switzerland, but a goalscorer from the heart in Dakar, has arrived. Yes, the Scudetto goal from Osimhen, the boy from Lagos, Nigeria, was expected in Naples, just one goal away from becoming the best African scorer in the history of Serie A, catching up with Milan’s Liberian George Weah on 46 goals. Instead, the Senegalese, of origins and family, Boulaye Dia, 26, struck one of the best purchases of this season also considering the yield and the modest price. Yes, because the striker who postponed the Neapolitan dreams of glory, discovered by Reims (France) among the amateurs only at the age of 22, cost Salernitana less than 14 million euros, between loan (1.8 million) and redemption fixed at 12.

They say about him

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Only now, after 12 goals – equaling Marco Di Vaio’s record for a striker from Salerno in a Serie A season – and 6 assists, the Premier has set his sights on the Senegalese ex Villarreal. Although the sports director of the grenade De Sanctis explained yesterday: “Especially on Dia, in the summer, there was no awareness of how strong he was. After salvation we will discuss things with him, we have the contractual strength to keep him and we keep him close. It testifies to the great work of our club, of the president and also of the blurred vision that one has on the talent of this player. In fact, Boulaye is not just any bomber. In his curriculum vitae he has a goal at the last World Cup against Qatar. One in qualifying for the World Cup and two recently in March for the African Cup qualifying round. With the clubs he also scored in the Champions League against Liverpool, in the semi-final first leg, giving rise to a comeback that then faded. And another 5 goals in La Liga. Yes, last season he had closed it with 7 centers, while in 2020-21 he had signed 16 goals in Reims in Ligue 1 and the national cup.

Work

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Yesterday Paulo Sousa said of him: “He’s making the difference in concreteness, the many goals, the passes, we need him like crazy to score points, he’s a strong player”, almost marveling at the astonishment of the others. Raised in the Jura Sud Foot club, studied several times by Lyon, who then gave up on him, at the age of 20 he started working as an electrician to support his family, due to his father’s health problems. That dad who didn’t want him to be a footballer and who took him home at the age of 12 before arriving in Saint-Etienne for an audition, after the old family Renault had broken down. A fan of jugglers like Ronaldinho and Robinho, Dia has always had clear ideas: one of the older Harouna brothers said that Boulaye at the age of 7 said: “When I grow up, I background in football and we will all get out of this situation of poverty”. Word kept. And in Salerno, after his goal, the party broke out, with 3,000 fans arriving at the Arechi stadium to thank the team with chants, smoke bombs and fireworks. Give it all. With a lot of teasing to the Neapolitans like “It was the hand of Dia” or “Scudetto? No es el DIA” or again the “left of Dia”, compared to that of the Neapolitan Dios. If Naples doesn’t cry anyway, Salerno certainly laughs.