Ismael Kenneth Kone

[costarg]

21 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

Kone strikes me as a player who excels with time and space. He's still young and will get stronger but at the moment with his age and kinda smooth way of playing he's susceptible to being swarmed in the midfield 

No disrespect intended, but I couldn't agree more with An Observer.  Kone literally creates space and bends time, the guy looks like a physicist out there.  I'm just really trying to understand how we can see two completely different things.

Just curious, how much of Kone have you watched?  From where I stand, Kone's most impressive talent is making/finding space and putting in a killer forward pass out of nothing.  He makes his markers disappear.

[SpursFlu]

1 minute ago, costarg said:

No disrespect intended, but I couldn't agree more with An Observer.  Kone literally creates space and bends time, the guy looks like a physicist out there.  I'm just really trying to understand how we can see two completely different things.

Just curious, how much of Kone have you watched?  From where I stand, Kone's most impressive talent is making/finding space and putting in a killer forward pass out of nothing.  He makes his markers disappear.

I agree with you. I'm just saying at this age physically and mentally developed players who really know what they're doing can physically over run him by closing his time and space in a blink of an eye. But that's why this experience is so important for him. At 19 it's really important to not always be dominant 

[Approve My Account Pls]

Anyone else get a little horned up thinking of what a Kone/Eustaquio combo might look like in a few years

[eramosat]

40 minutes ago, Approve My Account Pls said:

Anyone else get a little horned up thinking of what a Kone/Eustaquio combo might look like in a few years

if by "a few years", you mean in approximately 43 and 1/2 months...then absolutely!

not sure, IMHO people's definition of "a few years" widely varies, my mother always used to suggest the Bible implied it was equivalent to 8 years (true? i don't know), so I took that lesson to heart and always asked for clarification i.e. when can i have a dog? oh, maybe in a few years

two World Cups. Two World Cups! so great...

[An Observer]

11 hours ago, jonovision said:

Canada will have serious vulnerabilities against Belgium and its other group opponents no matter how they line up. It will be a choice between setting out to keep it close with a small chance of stealing a result, or playing football and letting the chips fall where they may.

Kone gives Canada a better chance of battling toe to toe. If we're bunkering and hoping for a set piece or counter goal there are better options.

I think its more the case of bunkering and hitting them on a counter utilizing the speed of Davies, David, Buchanan and if he plays, Kone. I personally believe we should play 4 - 5 - 1 against Belgium and frustrate their attack by denying them space and then countering against their very slow and old defense.  I think its our best chance for a result.  Our set pieces are weak so I definitely wouldn’t rely on that. 

Against Croatia, I haven’t seen enough of them to really understand whether that would be an effective strategy.  I saw them in the Euros where I think that could work but they have since brought in youth into the side and have reinvigorated themselves (see Nations league results) so just not sure.  Maybe pressing them and tiring them out is the way to go.  Against Morocco, I think it will be better to play 2 up front with either 4-4-2 or 3-5-2; similar to how we played against Uruguay as I don’t think they have the top tier strikers and central midfielders to exploit us in that situation.

 

[jonovision]

4 minutes ago, An Observer said:

I think its more the case of bunkering and hitting them on a counter utilizing the speed of Davies, David, Buchanan and if he plays, Kone. I personally believe we should play 4 - 5 - 1 against Belgium and frustrate their attack by denying them space and then countering against their very slow and old defense.  I think its our best chance for a result.  Our set pieces are weak so I definitely wouldn’t rely on that. 

 

Are they though? We scored a bunch from first or second phase of set pieces in WCQ. Surely more than any other team in the octo.

[Stryker911]

3 hours ago, Approve My Account Pls said:

Anyone else get a little horned up thinking of what a Kone/Eustaquio combo might look like in a few years

I was more excited about a front 5 of 29 year old Eustaquio, 25 year old Buchanan and Davies, 26 year old David, and 23 year old Kone.

[pod818]

 

[PegCityCam]

Love me some Platt and Jack...and yes, dreams do come true💭

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by PegCityCam

[BearcatSA]

Could be the breakout talent here.  To use the tool analogy from another thread, he has a fully stocked deluxe Husky mobile work bench of tools at his disposal.

[TGAA_Star]

On 10/25/2022 at 11:22 AM, costarg said:

No disrespect intended, but I couldn't agree more with An Observer.  Kone literally creates space and bends time, the guy looks like a physicist out there.  I'm just really trying to understand how we can see two completely different things.

Just curious, how much of Kone have you watched?  From where I stand, Kone's most impressive talent is making/finding space and putting in a killer forward pass out of nothing.  He makes his markers disappear.

And I can't wait to see that in Qatar

[rydermike]

Crazy to think that two years ago he was playing amateur in the LSEQ (not even the PLSQ) and now he's in the World Cup. Basically, for 2026 there will probably be at least a couple of guys we've never even heard of today.

[Lansdude]

4 minutes ago, rydermike said:

Crazy to think that two years ago he was playing amateur in the LSEQ (not even the PLSQ) and now he's in the World Cup. Basically, for 2026 there will probably be at least a couple of guys we've never even heard of today.

Yep. I hope one of them is a centre back!

[Kadenge]

Fantastic story indeed, but imagine if he had been "discovered" at say 16/17/18 and was in an academy where he could have developed further/faster and started his pro career earlier? Perhaps due to the influence of other Pro North American sports, we consider a 20 yr old as "young", yet several teens are playing in the top 5 leagues.  Yes they are exceptions, but I simply cannot believe that Kone's incredible skillset came about only in the last year. The Canadian scouting system has to improve if we are going to fully harness the talent that exists here. We have 3 MLS and 9 (10 hopefully) CPL teams now and the net has to be cast out far and wide...coast to coast to coast

[PegCityCam]

3 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

Fantastic story indeed, but imagine if he had been "discovered" at say 16/17/18 and was in an academy where he could have developed further/faster and started his pro career earlier? Perhaps due to the influence of other Pro North American sports, we consider a 20 yr old as "young", yet several teens are playing in the top 5 leagues.  Yes they are exceptions, but I simply cannot believe that Kone's incredible skillset came about only in the last year. The Canadian scouting system has to improve if we are going to fully harness the talent that exists here. We have 3 MLS and 9 (10 hopefully) CPL teams now and the net has to be cast out far and wide...coast to coast to coast

Exactly. It's time to push beyond being a discovery focused system and into a more capable and progressive development focused one. There are only so many phenoms out there. Progress is being made...let's hope it ramps up big time in the coming years.

[BearcatSA]

17 minutes ago, Kadenge said:

Fantastic story indeed, but imagine if he had been "discovered" at say 16/17/18 and was in an academy where he could have developed further/faster and started his pro career earlier? Perhaps due to the influence of other Pro North American sports, we consider a 20 yr old as "young", yet several teens are playing in the top 5 leagues.  Yes they are exceptions, but I simply cannot believe that Kone's incredible skillset came about only in the last year. The Canadian scouting system has to improve if we are going to fully harness the talent that exists here. We have 3 MLS and 9 (10 hopefully) CPL teams now and the net has to be cast out far and wide...coast to coast to coast

I find it refreshing that he wasn't and came out of no where, frankly.  But I do agree that we certainly can do better in that regard.

 

 

[Cheeta]

1 hour ago, Kadenge said:

Fantastic story indeed, but imagine if he had been "discovered" at say 16/17/18 and was in an academy where he could have developed further/faster and started his pro career earlier? Perhaps due to the influence of other Pro North American sports, we consider a 20 yr old as "young", yet several teens are playing in the top 5 leagues.  Yes they are exceptions, but I simply cannot believe that Kone's incredible skillset came about only in the last year. The Canadian scouting system has to improve if we are going to fully harness the talent that exists here. We have 3 MLS and 9 (10 hopefully) CPL teams now and the net has to be cast out far and wide...coast to coast to coast

100%.

Still, some things happen at their own pace.  It's impossible to count how many times someone has said "what a difference a year makes.".  Sometimes that year isn't when your 16. 

[Kadenge]

6 minutes ago, Cheeta said:

100%.

Still, some things happen at their own pace.  It's impossible to count how many times someone has said "what a difference a year makes.".  Sometimes that year isn't when your 16. 

Very true, but Kone's skill on the ball, the way he just glides with it, his ability to make cross field passes with precision and his athleticism is something you can't teach. He probably had that at a much earlier age. I mean he got his 1st cap for Canada 1 month after his pro debut!

[narduch]

Remember David bypassed MLS too

Edited November 13, 2022 by narduch

[Bertuzzi44]

Was Kone in CFM academy before the first team or was he at a local club?

[rydermike]

The one thing I wonder is maybe he was known, but chose to stay with St. Laurent? I'm thinking of Jonathan David, who was basically told to stay away from MLS academies and played youth in Ottawa until 18 and then he went to trial with European teams in 2018 when he turned 18.

Kone went to Belgium in 2020 (he turned 18 in 2020) to trial with Genk and Mouscron, but had to come back due to COVID and then joined Montreal U23. I wonder if that was a situation where he was like I can't go to Europe because of COVID rules, I guess MLS is my only choice now.

I'm completely speculating here, but everything matches up perfectly with what Jonathan David did. Could be a complete coincidence, or maybe the plan was always to get him to Europe at 18, but COVID foiled it.

 

[rydermike]

6 minutes ago, narduch said:

Remember David bypassed MLS too

Amazing that you wrote this, just as I was writing a comment specifically comparing him to David. Laughed at the coincidence as soon as I saw your post after I finished writing mine. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by rydermike

[rydermike]

5 minutes ago, Bertuzzi44 said:

Was Kone in CFM academy before the first team or was he at a local club?

He was at a local club until 18. He then went to Belgium in 2020, but was forced to come back to Canada due to covid. When he came back he joined Montreal U23 in the summer, then joined the first team in 2021

[Atlantic]

Would be nice to get a CPL team in Quebec soon so that some of these 17, 18 or 19-year-old kids who are in Quebec have an opportunity to go pro if CF Montreal isn't interested. Scouts get it wrong sometimes but there needs to be some freefall net catching these prospects rather than them turning to U Sports or quitting altogether. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Atlantic

[SoCalTransport]

11 minutes ago, Atlantic said:

Would be nice to get a CPL team in Quebec soon so that some of these 17, 18 or 19-year-old kids who are in Quebec have an opportunity to go pro if CF Montreal isn't interested. Scouts get it wrong sometimes but there needs to be some freefall net catching these prospects rather than them turning to U Sports or quitting altogether. 

Laval and Quebec City would be two good locations for teams. I could see them both in the league.