PROFILE | Mahdi Camara – Brest’s bargain buy rounds out his game | OneFootball

It has taken Mahdi Camara a winding path to finally earn the recognition that looked to be mere steps away when he first arrived in professional football. When the midfielder first emerged from the Saint-Étienne academy near the start of the decade it looked as if he would be another of France’s prospects to be quickly swallowed up by the Premier League.

In the 2020/21 campaign, his first full season in professional football, Camara played more minutes than any other Les Verts player. And by his second season, he was rewarded with the captain’s armband for his formative club.

The 23-year-old captain could not save a sinking ship and Saint-Étienne were relegated at the end of the 2021/22 campaign. It seemed a sure bet that a club would have spotted the potential of the young leader and jumped at the opportunity to buy him at a cut-cost price.

And yet, few clubs were reportedly interested in securing his signature allowing for Brest to do what they have done best in recent seasons and find a bargain. Camara joined on loan with an option to buy for €3.5m ahead of the 2022/23 campaign.

And while it looked a sideways step for the midfielder in a debut season where Les Pirates fought to survive the drop. The 2023/24 campaign was something quite spectacularly different and was a clear reminder of what clubs across France could have had if they had fought for the Frenchman.

Career-best stats for Camara

Camara was one of the heartbeats of a Brest team that stunned France by finishing third in the league (a best-ever league finish for a club that had only ever finished as high as eighth in the 1980s) and securing automatic qualification to the Champions League.

The combative midfielder has often been applauded for his defensive work (which was on show for a Brest team that conceded the third-fewest amount of goals) but last season was able to also add an offensive threat to his game. Camara scored a career-best seven goals in Ligue 1 while also providing five assists (four in the league and one in the Coupe de France).

This evolution from a defensive warrior into a more rounded player has been carried into the club’s first foray into Europe. Camara scored against RB Salzburg and also provided the assist for Pierre Lees-Melou to level the scores in the 1-1 draw with Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen.

GFFN | Nick Hartland