Ibrahima Konate never wants to be sure.
He wasn’t sure back at the beginning, when as a youth player in Sochaux’s academy, its director, Eric Hely, suggested his footballing attributes were more suited to a defensive position than the advanced roles he had preferred since first playing on the streets of Paris, where the raw physicality of games alongside his six older brothers and their friends – Konate also has a younger sister – sharpened his focus and taught him plenty.
In fact, for a while he actively argued against the idea, disputing it with a familiar teenage forcefulness.