News

3 goals in 2 Champions League games + MVP: Brighton loan striker Sima shines

23-year-old Senegalese international Sima has become a shining star in the Champions League. In the two Champions League games this season, Brest played unexpectedly and won consecutive victories, and Sima played an indispensable role.

As the team's main left winger, Sima scored 3 goals in two Champions League games and became the first player to win the MVP of a single game in two match days.

After scoring twice and winning 11 confrontations in the game against Salzburg Red Bull early this morning, Sima's performance was unanimously recognized, and he also tried hard to realize his potential.

This article is a simple analysis of Sima's performance, and the data comes from sofascore.

Henry of Brest

As the team's main left winger, Sima scored 3 goals in 2 Champions League games and became the first player to win the MVP of a single game in two consecutive match days.

Born on June 17, 2001, Sima has a slender figure, excellent impact and speed, and his career experience is also quite inspiring-from the beginning in the fourth-level league in France to a hit in the Czech Republic, half a year later, he landed in the Czech giants Slavia Prague and achieved great success.

Sima joined Brighton in the summer of 2021 for a transfer fee of nearly 15 million. For a 20-year-old young man, this price is not cheap, but he has no position and was loaned to Stoke City and Angers successively. He also performed mediocrely and missed the opportunity to join Senegal in the Qatar World Cup.

Last season, Sima was loaned to Rangers, a Scottish Premier League giant. He scored 16 goals in 40 games and performed very well, but Brighton still would not use him immediately because the Seagulls had too many players on the left. So, this summer, Sima joined Brest, a new team in the Champions League that had lost players, and landed in the French Ligue 1 again.

After a short period of adaptation, Sima quickly occupied a place in Brest's system - the impact-type fulcrum winger was his role. Since Brest's original player in this position, Ledou Aron, transferred to Palermo, Sima also occupied the main position on the left.

Compared to Ledou Aron, Sima is not as strong and aggressive, but his talent and potential have improved - Ledou Aron is a bridgehead with only left foot ability, his role is slightly single and he is not good at cutting inside with the ball, while Sima has a fast ball speed, is more silky, and can also cut inside the middle. In addition, both of them have the ability to assist in the middle (assisting the big fulcrum Aroque/Munier), which is also very consistent.

Statistics at a glance

In the two Champions League games this season, Brest won consecutive victories, Sima scored 3 goals, and won the MVP in consecutive games, which is indispensable.

In these two games, Sima won 21 of 35 confrontations, including 15 headers and 12 successes, which is quite amazing. In addition, he was also very active in returning to defense and going back and forth on the left side.

Although his passing success rate is extremely low as a bridgehead on the wing, his flaws do not outweigh his merits. Sima plays a very important role in Brest's interesting system, an upgraded version of Ledoux.

However, in the French Ligue 1, Brest, which currently has 6 points in 6 rounds, needs to try to get more points. Sima also needs to improve his ball control efficiency in the frontcourt - the data of 1 assist in 5 games (average) is one aspect, and his ball control success rate is also not high.