Kenza Dali: "I’m someone who keeps the ball in between the lines, that’s my job."
Pressing Questions #2: Kenza Dali
French football has produced some of the greatest players of the last decade and even a lot of them are home to the most successful European team in Olympique Lyon. The French national team is home to some incredibly talented individuals like Amandine Henry, Wendie Renard, Eugénie Le Sommer, Kadidiatou Diani, and more. Even if you go back a few years, you’ll see iconic names likes of Louisa Nécib, Sonia Bompastor, and Camille Abily.
No one can dispute the quality of these players, and one name in particular that deserves a worthy mention is Everton’s Kenza Dali. The inventive midfielder has had a nomadic career but has injected a level of quality and creativity into every squad she’s been a part of over the years.
The current crop of midfielders in football all bring their own strengths and qualities. Dali is a product of her French expedition that has allowed her to evolve as a player. From starting out as a high-flying winger to turning into an innovative, creative attacking midfielder, she has encapsulated the meaning of learning from scratch. As you’re about to see, Dali is a deep thinker of the game – one that constantly looks for improvements and loves beautiful football.
Understanding the mind of an experienced international that has found her identity gives us an insight into how the game is played from her eyes, in a league that is watched globally.
My conversation with Kenza Dali was both riveting as it was eye-opening.
I mean let’s start with something simple, yet intriguing. How would you explain your role and best position in your own words?
I would say that I’m an attacking midfielder but today in the real game, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. I feel like a midfielder has to defend as well. Before in the old days, when you say attacking midfielder, it means you’re playing like Messi or you’re just walking when you lose the ball and you’re only playing in possession and nothing much out of possession. I feel like today you have to defend, so I always say I am a midfielder. I would not describe myself as an attacking midfielder, ‘cause that means nothing today.
I think the most important thing as a midfielder is to be creative. We know that they’re the engine of the team. We always say that if your midfielder wins the battle, you have a lot of chances to win the game, so I feel it is a really important position in and out of possession. It demands a lot of effort physically. I think you need volume, creativity, [to be] good with your feet. I feel like you need to be very confident to be a midfielder. I always had coaches who said if I have a performing midfielder, I’m going to win a lot of games. But, yeah, it’s a lot of responsibility [she smiles].
You’ve obviously played for PSG, West Ham, and Everton with shorter spells at Dijon, Rodez, and Lille. How would you say you’ve evolved as a player over your career?
I’m a bit different to other players because I played half of my career as a winger, a lot of games with the national team as a winger. I played 5 years at PSG as a winger. After my really bad injury with my knee which put me away from the pitch for 3 years, I had a coach at Lyon who said “you know what, we’re going to try you as a midfielder.” I was already 25 years old, so when you tell someone that after your whole career in one position – at 25 – to come and tells you to play midfielder, which is a completely different game.
A winger is not a midfielder; so a winger can play as a 9 sometimes or a winger can play a couple of games as a right-back, why not? You have the same basic principles, but this change had me like ‘What? You want me to play at 25 in a centre-mid position?’ But I said, ‘Why not’ and that’s how I started to be a number 10. I never thought I’m going to play as a 10 in my career and that’s where it started.
I will say I improve all the time because obviously, I was a winger, so every day you take a bit more. As a winger, you just have everything in front of you, as a midfielder you take the ball and you have 3 players around you, so how do you manage to take the information, how do you change your game, your mind as well. It isn’t just that I’m dribbling and I have to cross, it’s more about sometimes I’m dribbling, sometimes I cross, sometimes I drive with the ball.
So it’s a completely different job. So I’m still learning [the position] because it’s been 5 years playing here, which is not a lot when you play at the top level. When you play the international game, you play against top people, who have been playing since their academy days. They work on this position since then.
All of my academy [career] I worked as a winger. Again, it’s about being adaptable, I think a lot of good players can play multiple positions and this is a strength for the coach. He knows he can play me on the side or middle. It never happened to me in England yet, none of my coaches have asked me to play as a winger, so I’m happy to play my position [she laughs]. I improve every day because like I said, I didn’t have that [upbringing] of playing in this position from the academy. So yeah, I’m different!
Definitely, I think by moving to this position, you’d have been better at your positioning, understanding of the game, scanning the pitch, and I’m assuming it gave you a better overall perspective. So if you were to ever move to another position you’d approach it in a completely different way.
You signed for Everton over the summer and now have played under two different managers already. I know it’s a short spell, but how would you say your role differs between the two?
You know, it's a bit similar because even if I didn’t have time to really get to know Willie [Kirk] unfortunately, but they [still] want to be in possession, they want to have the ball. I feel it’s good for me because I can’t play in a team that doesn’t have the ball. I’m French and the French have slightly copied the way the Spanish have played. Which is completely different football to England or North America. They have a more direct football. I can’t imagine myself in a team where they play direct.
I was struggling a bit at West Ham because of that. West Ham is obviously a team that don’t really care for possession – they want to be efficient, they play counter-attack. If you need to defend 80% of the game, then they’re happy with that. I’m not. I learned football with Lyon, which is a project of having the ball. Even when you have the ball, it’s a way of defending. I can defend, it’s not a problem, it’s a part of the game, but I can’t start the game and only have 20% possession. I just hate it. I need to have the ball, I play football to have the ball and I respect the fact that some of the teams and midfielders are like “I need to defend for 90 minutes”.
Every coach told me, like at Chelsea for example, the second game of the season, I was on the bench. Willie came to me and said ‘you know, we’re going to run after the ball, so I’ve just put someone who is able to say today I’m not going to see the ball. I’m going to defend.’ For me, it’s just a version of football I can’t accept.
For me, if you’re defending and you put the ball away, I can’t say ‘good job’. If you’re a good defender, you’re able to play short with your midfield. It’s challenging, I knew when I came to England that I’m not going to have the possession as I had at Lyon or PSG. I knew it, but it’s actually the most challenging part for me in England. I’m someone who keeps the ball in between the lines, that’s my job.
So the two managers play with possession, they want the ball, that’s why I am here. If I have a coach that says “look, this season we aren’t going to have much possession, we’re going to counter-attack”, then no, I’m out. So they both, luckily for me, want the ball. You never know what you lose, but you never know what you gain! So when you sign for a coach, you already know what he wants from you but after five games we don’t have Willie anymore. Then you start to get stressed and say “oh my god, imagine, I have a coach tell me to kick and run. I signed for 2 years how am I going to do this?”.
Luckily Jean-Luc [Vasseur] is French and I’ve never seen a French coach say ‘kick and run’. I knew that if we have a French coach, we will play in possession, well, try to play in possession because you need the players, etc. but this is enough for me. But yeah, the boss wants to play with the ball, attack a lot, scoring a lot, so I haven’t seen a big difference so far between Willie and the new coach.
I mean, let’s look at the possession game some more. For you, how do you look to deal with teams that look to close off supply to you? They might press you or they might even look to press the supply to you.
I know you said you’re a complete midfielder and you’ve got to be able to do everything, but how do you overcome a situation like that from both an attacking point of view and finding space in between the lines?
I think West Ham is a good example because they have really physical players, athletic players in the middle. If you take Dagný [Brynjarsdóttir] the Icelandic midfielder, she’s like so tall and so physical; the new player Abby, she came from Everton, she’s also so physical. Against them in the first game, the coach knows me, he put someone to press me. I watch the game back and I was like this, is how you break the team that loves to play in possession. Break the rhythm. I remember I dribbled two players and I thought I had no one on my back, and she was still here. It’s a difficult team to play against, it’s a challenge, physically a challenge.
How you break the low block for me is that there are two solutions. One by playing the one-two [passing exchanges]. So one-two, bounce, one-two bounce, and you make them run. At one point you play the ball quickly and the defence will say, ‘okay we step up’. They can’t keep running after you, they’ll get tired. You know some player will come towards you and this is where you see the gap and can play the ball. You need to be really patient and clean technically because if you come against a low block and you’re losing the ball after 3 passes, then it can’t work. So you have to move them with short passes, a bit like Barcelona is doing, which is amazing.
So you can play the one-two bounce, but you can also just drive. If I think the one-two pass isn’t working, then I’ll just dribble. The defender has to come to you and that’s why your No 9 and the winger has to move and you play the pass. You have to commit the defender. Yeah, so for me with the low block, there are only these two solutions, there aren’t a lot. Just collectively break them, move the ball quickly, and drive with the ball and commit the defender.
Yeah, I think that’s where the communication is key, if you’re driving forward then you need players to move. If they don’t move, you’ll either win the free-kick otherwise you need the overlapping runner to make a run to make this work.
So this is somewhat related in part to the last question, but what kind of players do you like playing around you in terms of roles and types of profiles that suit your style?
At the moment, I’d say all the Barcelona players. I’m watching a lot of football. As my mum says, I’m eating football, sleeping football.
Don’t worry, mine says the same thing! [Both laugh]
You know some players can switch off and come home to watch Netflix. I’m able to watch every type of football. I’m watching the AFCON at the moment, some people say this is horrible football but this is actually interesting. I will say as the women’s game is today, Barcelona is amazing.
Everyone says Barcelona is amazing, but don’t realise how collectively they are amazing. As a player when you watch a game, well, when I watch a game, I’ll see it and go ‘oh here, I’d do that or here I’d do this’ and every time I’m watching Barcelona, I’m like ‘oh my god, if I’m in this position, then happy days!’ The amount of solutions you have around you, how beautiful the game is. I love beautiful football. I’m for efficient football, but I love beautiful football.
Some people don’t like this and say the aim is winning, they don’t care how they’re winning, but I really care how I’m winning. If I win 2-0 and I didn’t enjoy my game, then at the end I’m like ‘well, we got 3 points but meh’. With Barcelona, they don’t accept to win a game without the [style]. So if today I have the choice to say this midfielder or that one, I’ll just pick the entire Barcelona team!
If you see that, it’s the Barca way even in the men’s game. Let’s say you sign a goalkeeper, they have to be good at with their feet. If your goalkeeper wants to play with Barca, then you have to be amazing, to have the same quality with your feet as your centre-back, it means everything. I always say how do you want to play football if your first pass is not good. If my centre-back has no feet, my first pass is not going to be good and then it goes long and then you can’t play. That’s why I love Barcelona because everyone is able to make the difference collectively because technically it’s amazing. So yes, I would say Barca midfielders [she grins].
I mean it’s great because after the whole FIFA Pro debacle so to speak, it’s great to see that you actually watch your peers. I think the impression a lot of people got was “do the players even watch the others play?” So the fact that you can pick up these styles and understand it all is amazing.
Right, let’s go into some fantasy setups, if you could pick an ideal system/formation to play in, what would it be and why? What’s your favourite style of football?
Actually, I’m not going to be very creative, I’ll just play a 4-3-3. I feel like we play this system a lot in the national team for years. For me, this is where you get balance. Why, because for example at Everton, we aren’t playing 4-3-3 because of a lot of reasons like we had the ACL of our Danish player Nico [Sørensen], she’s a winger. Even if the coach were to say ‘let’s play 4-3-3’, you are limited to the players you have. The best managers will see the players they have and find the best formation with this player quality. So unfortunately with Everton, it's complicated to play 4-3-3 because we don’t have wingers.
When you attack, you have possibilities in front of you and on the side. So if it’s in front of you then you have options to your side, but if you attack in a three-at-the-back formation then your full-backs or wingers are really deep, so your only option is your striker. I will say it depends on the players you have. I really believe you need to build the formation based on the players you have and not the opposite. What do I have as players, and how can I get the best out of them. So as a manager, if I have to pick a formation then I need to see the players first, but I love the 4-3-3 as a player myself. When you defend, you have bodies behind the ball, and when you attack, you have bodies in front of the ball.
Chelsea for example this season can [prove] me wrong because they play with three-at-the-back. I believe that Emma [Hayes] was like ‘OK, I got these players, what’s the best formation I can use?’. I know Chelsea, for example, are missing a left-back. A real left-back. So if tomorrow she wants to play a 4-3-3, she possibly can’t. So I think she was thinking like this. She must have thought ‘I don’t have a real world-class left-back so how can I play with what I have?’. Then she played three at the back.
So, while it depends on the players you have, I really think the 4-3-3 is a really good formation for balance.
Based on your last answer of the formation and system you’ve chosen, who would be part of your dream midfield?
Is this women only, because at the moment I’ll pick Kevin De Bruyne! I’m watching a lot of his games because I’m not sure how you can do that. The last goal he scored against Chelsea was unbelievable. I’m playing this position and I’m like ‘this is unbelievable’.
To be honest, this is a hard question. Do you know Shirley Cruz? I played with her in PSG and I have never played with a better midfielder. Today she’s 34/35 and not the same player, but when she was playing with big objectives in a competitive team, I have never seen a better midfielder.
But I’ll put Alexia [Putellas] – of course, this is the popular choice but she’s great. If I stick to England, then I’ll pick Ji [So-Yun] from Chelsea, I mean top class. When you watch her as a midfielder, she’s great, again because I never watch football to watch football, I always watch it to see how players play. I believe that good players are able to be good in every team, and if you put Ji in every team then she will still be a really good player.
There are other good ones in England, actually two from Manchester United who actually told me after a game that ‘I really like you as a player’. I think after two years everyone will be talking about [Ella] Toone. For her age, this is impressive. I love Kirby, Ji, Toone as midfielders… uhm, I need a number 6. A defensive midfielder is hard but I’ll stick with Yaya [Aurora Galli] – Italian passing, I call her Verratti; but these are really good midfielders but I would take Ji first and Alexia.
Lastly, I want to show you one clip of you in a certain situation, I’d love to hear your explanation of what you were thinking in these moments and the reasons behind making these decisions. How does your mind work when you are in these moments?
I was shouting at the TV during this game saying ‘Get Kenza in the space’ and 30 seconds later you made this pass.
Haha, no I love this pass. I remember this. You know, I learned from Thierry Henry. He said it depends on the ball you play, but also it depends on the player that passes the ball. So like for example, I will never pass the ball if the player was Toni Duggan instead of Claire [Emslie] because I know Toni will not make this run. As soon as I know that it’s Claire, I know she’s going to make this run because in training we play blind with Claire.
Actually, she’s the player that, when I came to Everton, I had a really good relationship with, football relationship with. For me, it’s so easy to play with her and she always says to me ‘why were we not together before?’ It changed my game because I feel the same. She loves playing with me and I love playing with her.
I knew it was Claire [in that position], I knew she was going to make this run because I know her so well. So I just play blind, to be honest. I checked my shoulder for a millisecond and I knew it was Claire on the left so I played it. If Claire was on the right then it means Toni and Val [Gauvin] are in this position. I will never play a ball that you need to sprint for Valerie because she is not this type of player.
Valerie is a [No] 9 that wants the ball to her feet or head. So you can’t play balls through the line because the defender will go quicker than her. Toni is more of a baller with her feet, playing one-two passes. Claire is all run, who can play behind the line and through the line. So as soon as I saw Claire, I knew she’ll make the run.
To be honest, the pass isn’t that good – rather the run is unbelievable. I feel like the run made the pass. When the run is obvious, the pass is easy. For me when the run is good, it’s easy to play a ball like this. It wasn’t hard, I remember I just took the ball and played it. Everyone’s talking about this pass, even my brother. He said the pass is world-class but I said ‘no, the run is world-class!’ She made my life easier. If she doesn’t make the run, then I need to dribble and it’s harder than the pass. Unfortunately, we didn’t score but it was a great run.
Cover photo designed by Charlotte Stacey
Photo by Lewis Storey - The FA/The FA via Getty Image
Photo by Tony McArdle/Everton FC via Getty Images
Photo by Emma Simpson - Everton FC/Everton FC via Getty Images