Al-Ahly of Egypt ended its summer shopping spree by signing Frenchman Anthony Modeste from German Borussia Dortmund, in a free transfer deal that sparked controversy between supporters of including a player who played matches in strong European leagues, and opponents of signing a 35-year-old striker, amid the failure of previous experiences of European players in the Egyptian League.
Al-Ahly has two attacking players: Mahmoud Abdel Moneim (Kahraba), the team’s top scorer in the last edition of the African Champions League, and Salah Mohsen, who returned from a loan from Ceramica Cleopatra Club, to add to them Modest, while Mohamed Sherif, the team’s top scorer in the league last season, left with 11 goals. , to become professional in the Saudi League.
Based on the desire of Swiss coach Marcel Kohler to include a striker, Al-Ahly signed Modeste, who during his career had experiences in the German, French and English leagues.
An unsteady march
The beginning was in France, where he played for the clubs Nice, Angers and Bordeaux, before moving on to experience in the English Premier League for 6 months with Blackburn in 2012, during which he played 9 matches, including only 3 as a starter and did not score any goals, then returned to the French League with the clubs Bastia and Bordeaux. After Blackburn was relegated to the First Division.
Modest's brilliance was during his time playing with Angers in the second division, where he scored 21 goals in 41 matches, which led to him receiving an offer from Bordeaux.
Modeste had several experiences in the German League, where he played for Hoffenheim, Cologne and Dortmund.
The most prominent period was with Köln, especially the 2016-2017 season, when he ranked third on the list of top scorers in the “Bundesliga” with 25 goals, behind Robert Lewandowski and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the top scorers for Bayern Munich and Dortmund at the time.
Modeste went through two experiences in the Chinese League and a loan to the French club Saint-Etienne, and he did not succeed during any of them, so he returned to Cologne and excelled again by scoring 23 goals in 35 matches in the 2021-2022 season.
Last season, he left for Dortmund after Sebastien Haller was diagnosed with cancer and Erling Haaland left for Manchester City.
Modest did not have a successful season with the Yellow and Black team, as he settled for only two goals, including a decisive goal against Bayern Munich in the last seconds, in the match that ended in a 2-2 draw, and he attended his team’s loss of the German League in the last match of the season.
Big risk
Egyptian sports journalist Hadi Al-Madani believes that Modeste “is not a top-level player in Europe, but he is classified at an average level, as he did not play any international matches with France and did not play in major teams or win European championships.”
Speaking to Sky News Arabia, Al-Madani said that Modeste will receive $3 million over two seasons, which is “a large sum with which Al-Ahly could have included a high-level African player and benefited from marketing him in Europe at a later time, in contrast to bringing in a player of Age 35 years.
He said, "It is a risk to sign Modest, but time will prove the extent of his harmony, success, and commitment to the team."
Al-Madani continued: “Al-Ahly management does not have a scouting team to search for African talents, and therefore resorting to a ready player with European contact experience was the solution, in light of the lack of good options.”
Modest is the second European to join Al-Ahly, after the experience of German-Brazilian
player Hendrik Helmke.
Numbers speak
The "Total Football Analysis" website, which specializes in analyzing players' performance, monitored Modeste's numbers during his time playing in the German League, and stated that the French player shoots at goal 3.4 times and touches the ball inside the penalty area 4.1 times, while scoring an average of 0.69 goals per match.
The most prominent statistic is that the largest percentage of Modest’s goals are from headers, accounting for half of his total goals, and therefore he always needs to be supplied with crosses and high balls to take advantage of his height, which is 190 centimetres.
Colin benefited the most from Modest during the two seasons in which he was the team's top scorer, thanks to the fact that the German team was the most cross-baller in the league, and ranked third among the five major league teams that cross-balled the most, according to the player performance analysis site.
Modeste is awaiting many tournaments during the new season with Al-Ahly, namely the newly created African League, the African Super Cup against USM Algiers of Algeria, the African Champions League, and the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia, in addition to the local tournaments, the League, Cup, Super Cup, and League Cup, if Al-Ahly decides to participate in them.
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