The 18-year-old winger has already begun making an impact at Old Trafford after completing his big-money move from Atalanta in January
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Manchester United winger Amad Diallo has been tipped to challenge for a Ballon d'Or in five years' time by the man who engineered his move into Atalanta's academy.
The 18-year-old winger has made a strong start to life at Old Trafford following his January move from the Bergamo outfit.
His displays, which remain sporadic for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side, have been rewarded with a first call-up to the senior Ivory Coast squad this month, as well as a place on Goal's NXGN list of the top teenage talents in world football.
What was said?
Former AC Milan and Italy goalkeeper Giovanni Galli was working as sporting director for Serie C outfit Lucchese when he was first introduced to Amad, who had been impressing for amateur club Boca Barco.
Using his contacts, Galli organised a trial for the youngster at Atalanta, and he has since seen him go on to become one of the brightest talents in both Serie A and, now, the Premier League.
“Amad is unique,” Galli told Goal in an exclusive interview, "but he must make himself stronger.
"At the same time, he must make sure he does not lose his speed, which is a quality that distinguishes him from others."
He added: "In short, I think he has all the qualities to be a candidate for the Ballon d’Or in the next five years."
Amad Diallo: The story so far
Amad arrived in Italy as a 12-year-old alongside his older brother, Hamed Traore, who now plies his trade for Sassuolo, and the pair soon began representing Boca Barco.
When it became clear that they were far too good to be playing at such a level, Galli had them train with his own players at Lucchese to gauge their abilities.
"I immediately knew that both of them had above-average quality,” he said. “For Amad, it was his technique and speed that made him stand out.”
Despite being 13, Amad was immediately placed within the Under-15s set-up, and proved to be their star player as they won the league in his first season.
He continued his rapid ascension through the various age groups before beginning to train with the first team, where club captain Papu Gomez recalled that
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Few people expected the club's Head of Development to be given the job but he has played a key role in improving the club's academy since 2013
A simple Google search of 'Manchester United' and 'Director of Football' would produce a long list of famous names.
Edwin van der Sar, Ralf Rangnick, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra – the number of rumoured candidates has grown and grown over the years, as players-turned-pundits argued that the club desperately needed to give someone with a background in the game a key role in transfer negotiations.
The role was always likely to be filled eventually but there won’t have been many interested observers who expected United's Head of Football development John Murtough to be given the job.
In fact, after it was announced on Wednesday that Murtough had been appointed the club's first ever 'Football Director', many outsiders were simply wondering who he was – let alone why he'd been chosen to fill such an important position.
However, Murtough has long been considered a key figure at Old Trafford.
He was brought to United by David Moyes in 2013, having previously worked for the Premier League. Regularly described as a 'fixer', Murtough was charged with improving the academy.
He excelled in that regard, playing a pivotal role in a change of policy which saw United adopt a more expansive, global approach to player recruitment, resulting in the arrival of the likes of Hannibal Mejbri and Alvaro Fernandez.
Murtough, who will report into Ed Woodward, was also integral to the establishment of the Women’s team in 2018.
Consequently, while United evaluated a number of external candidates, they regarded Murtough as the best option for the 'Football Director' role because of his already extensive knowledge of the club and his numerous success stories over the past eight years and he was considered to be a better option than the external candidates who were deemed inappropriate as they were only interested in recruitment.
Of course, his work is now going to come under more scrutiny than ever before.
One of the principal external criticisms of United's management structure has long been that the signing of players is overseen by people "not from the football world", as Evra
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Hi Reddit! I'm Charlotte Duncker, Manchester United correspondent for Goal.
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Prof. Hakan Kayal, Chair of Computer Science at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany, leads a UAP detection project. Outdoor testing of the project's 'SkyCAM-5' started on December 13th, 2021.
Brief info from the project homepage (see 'publications and media articles' at the bottom of that link for more):
"UAP is generally understood to be phenomena that mostly occur in the sky and for which there initially seems to be no explanation. Most observations involve known phenomena or objects such as birds, airplanes, satellites or clouds. In the case of a very small proportion of these phenomena, the cause remains unexplained, even after intensive examination by experts and relatively good data.
The research focus at the professorship for space technology contributes to the research of UAPs through the development and operation of technical systems for detection, evaluation and analysis as well as through investigations in particularly outstanding cases. "
More about SkyCam-5, here; excerpt below:
"SkyCam-5 is a test platform for the autonomous detection of so-called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP). By using image processing algorithms, the sky is continuously observed for conspicuous phenomena. Current machine learning models are used to reduce false detections. The main goal of the camera system is the detection of UAPs. It can also detect short-term light phenomena such as lightning or meteors."
Edit: you may need to translate; my browser is set to auto-translate.
