Lamine Camara: Monaco Midfielder, Senegal International and Liverpool Target

On the last day of the summer transfer window, Lamine Camara was about to become a Chelsea player. The fee was agreed at around £47 million, reports said. Then Monaco pulled out at the last minute, because a deal to sell Folarin Balogun to Everton had looked close and then fell apart. By the time anyone could fix it, the window had shut.

Camara went back to training in Monaco. Two months on, he is starting nearly every game, and the noise around him has only grown. This week The Sun reported that Liverpool had contacted his camp and asked to be kept informed, with a January move “not ruled out”. Sky Sports, ESPN and others picked it up. In Kenya his name was among the top football searches today.

He is 22. Most people outside France and Senegal could not have picked him out of a line-up two years ago.

Quick facts

• Full name: Lamine Camara
• Born: 1 January 2004, in the Casamance region of southern Senegal (sources give Bignona or nearby Diouloulou)
• Height: 1.73 m
• Position: Central midfielder
• Clubs: Génération Foot (2019-2023), Metz (2023-2024), Monaco (since July 2024)
• Contract: Monaco, to June 2029
• Senegal: Senior debut 2023; around 50 caps; 2026 World Cup squad; Africa Cup of Nations runner-up 2025
• Youth honours: U-20 Africa Cup of Nations winner and player of the tournament (2023)

From Casamance to Génération Foot

He comes from the south of Senegal, the green part of the country, a long way from Dakar’s academies. Monaco’s official profile says Bignona. Other records say Diouloulou, a town closer to the Gambian border. We could not settle it, so both are here.

As a boy he played for Galaxy FA in Dakar and then Casa Sports before joining Génération Foot in November 2019. That academy has a habit of sending players to Metz, most famously Sadio Mané and Ismaïla Sarr, and Camara would follow the same road.

The year before he left, 2023, was a big one. He was part of the home-based Senegal side that won the African Nations Championship in early 2023. Weeks later he won the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations, scoring twice, setting up two, and taking the best player award. Not a bad few months for a teenager.

Metz, and a goal from his own half

Metz signed him in February 2023, when they were in Ligue 2. His first weeks were a bit of everything. A debut off the bench in a 3-0 win over Bordeaux. An assist in a 3-1 win at Saint-Étienne in his second match, and then a red card in the same game. Metz went up anyway.

In Ligue 1 he became a regular almost straight away. And on 22 October 2023, at Monaco of all places, he scored one of the goals of the season. He robbed Youssouf Fofana in his own half and hit it first time from about 58 metres, over the goalkeeper’s head. Metz lost 2-1. Nobody remembers that part.

By the end of the season fans had voted him the league’s best young talent, the “Pépite de la saison”. Metz were relegated. He was not going down with them.

Monaco

Monaco paid about €15 million in July 2024 and gave him a five-year deal. He scored in his second league game, against Lyon, and then got sent off for two yellow cards in the same match. There is a pattern there. He plays with his foot down, and referees notice.

He made his Champions League debut against Barcelona in September 2024, a 2-1 win. Over his first season he played 40 games, scored twice, including an injury-time winner against Montpellier in the club’s centenary match, and set up seven goals, many from set pieces.

His coach this season, Filipe Luís, has been generous with praise. “He can run a marathon, play for ninety minutes without ever letting up, whilst playing football,” he told L’Équipe. “He embodies the future of the game.” Coaches say these things. Still, the stats back him up. He has started at least ten of Monaco’s 12 games this season (one report says all 12), with two goals and an assist, and Monaco are fourth in Ligue 1.

Senegal

He scored on his senior debut, a World Cup qualifier against South Sudan in Dakar in late 2023. At the Africa Cup of Nations in Côte d’Ivoire in January 2024 he scored twice in the opening 3-0 win over Gambia, then started three of Senegal’s four games. Senegal reached the final of the next edition, in Morocco, and lost.

At this summer’s World Cup he wore the number 8 shirt. Senegal were drawn with France, Iraq and Norway, and he played in the opening match against France on 16 June. The photo at the top of this page is from that game.

The type of player he is

Short, quick, constantly moving. He is more of a runner than a playmaker, but his passing is cleaner than you’d guess from his style, and he takes free-kicks and corners well. The weak spot is discipline. He picks up cards. In a league like the Premier League, where everything is faster and referees are stricter in different ways, that will matter.

Would he fit Liverpool? Probably, on paper. Andoni Iraola likes his teams to press hard and run, and Camara does both. But Monaco are in the Conference League and pushing for the top four, and they have no real reason to sell in January. Reports say any winter deal would need “compromises” from all sides. Our honest read is that summer is more likely.

The Chelsea collapse did not seem to rattle him. He went back, started every game and kept quiet. For a 22-year-old who had already said goodbye to his team-mates in his head, that is not nothing.

What we could not verify

• His exact birthplace, given conflicting sources.
• Any formal offer from Liverpool. Reports describe contact with his representatives only.
• The exact fee Chelsea agreed in August. Figures quoted range from about £47 million to €55 million.

Sources

• The Sun
• Sports Mole
• Sky Sports
• ESPN
• L’Équipe
• AS Monaco
• FIFA
• Wikipedia