Rewind to September 2024: Mamadou Sangare is being welcomed into the Mali squad for the very first time, and tradition dictates he must belt out an initiation song while balanced on top of a chair.
Before that moment arrived, national team captain Yves Bissouma pulled the newcomer to one side and asked which position he fancied playing for Mali.
"Yours," Sangare told Bissouma, in a big, bold statement.
Tom Saintfiet, who was Mali's head coach at the time, still smiles at the memory when he speaks to Sky Sports.
"I loved that. He's an open, intelligent person - and confident. He knows what he can do."
Sangare never actually displaced Bissouma in the Mali midfield - the pair ended up playing together for their country - but two years on, the 24-year-old has firmly established himself as Mali's brightest export in English football.
Brentford open their Premier League campaign against Tottenham Hotspur, and Sangare will line up for the Bees having become the club's new record signing. Bissouma, meanwhile, was released by Spurs this summer and remains without a club.
A club-record deal from Ligue 1
Brentford's move for Sangare, worth £39m, was widely regarded as a major coup for the west London club given his standing at RC Lens, who finished second in Ligue 1 last season and lifted the French Cup.
According to Reuters, the transfer was completed on 1 August 2026 and was officially confirmed as a club-record fee, with Sangare signing a five-year contract that includes an option for a further year. The The Athletic reported the fee at around €48 million, or roughly £41.1 million, which would have overtaken Brentford's previous club-record outlay on Dango Ouattara.
Reuters also reported that Brentford viewed the signing as a direct response to Jordan Henderson's exit from the club earlier that same week, after just one season at the Gtech Community Stadium, positioning Sangare as his eventual replacement in midfield.
Sangare had already been named in Ligue 1's Team of the Year for last season, beating out the likes of Joao Neves and Fabian Ruiz to the honour, having established himself as one of the division's most important operators.
He could have stayed in France and played Champions League football with Lens this coming season, yet turned down that path - and plenty of other suitors - to move to Brentford instead.
"I remember a few months ago when I was talking to him, there were some different names already mentioned. There were some top clubs in the English Premier League, the real giants," Saintfiet recalls.
Far more than a defensive midfielder
Sangare might not yet be a household name for the average Premier League supporter, but anyone who watched Ligue 1 closely last season will understand exactly why Brentford moved for him. The 24-year-old effectively earned a reputation as the 'Elliot Anderson of French football', topping the charts for ball-winning numbers and defensive statistics in his league.
Yet reducing him to a purely defensive role misses the point entirely, according to Saintfiet, who even used Sangare as a wider midfielder for the national side.
"No, no. If you talk about ball recovery, tackling, then you look really to the Claude Makelele, the Gennaro Gattuso, the real die-hard No 6. And for me, he's not really a No 6. He's different from that. He's more of a No 8 than a No 6, and he can even play as a No 10. His multifunctional qualities are his strengths."
That versatility suits Brentford neatly, given they already possess a highly capable No 6 in Yehor Yarmoliuk, who statistically emerged as something like the 'Elliot Anderson of Brentford' last season. With Yarmoliuk shielding the back four, Sangare is freed to cause problems higher up the pitch.
"When he has the ball, he is very confident on the ball. He is able to find solutions very fast under pressure, to give good passes, both short and long. So he's much more than only someone who can recover a ball, in my eyes," says Saintfiet.
"Put him in Barcelona's team, and he will have an important role in such a team - because of his style of playing. He is confident on the ball, he is very smart in his passing. Even if he is strong in ball recovery, he combines that with so many other skills, which is so important in modern football."
A shot he rarely takes
One area where Sangare particularly stood out last season was long-range shooting. Only two players in the whole of Ligue 1 attempted more shots from outside the box than the Lens midfielder, and if that trait develops further at Brentford, the excitement around him will only intensify.
The early signs are encouraging. Sangare marked his Brentford debut with a long-range strike in the club's 7-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.
"I think he can score a few more goals a season. He has a very good shot, he has a good free kick, but he doesn't use it. In training, I'm always impressed with his shots from distance and during small side games," Saintfiet explains.
"And maybe, sometimes he is too much a team player. He wants to give the chance to another player. He gives a pass when he has the opportunity to take the shot himself. So I think he can be a little bit being more selfish in front of the goal."
"A player who delivers final passes, assists, that's welcome. But if you can have three, four, five goals a season, that will be better. And I think he has that ability to do that. He only has to take now the responsibility to show it."
From Rapid Vienna to a top-level target
Adapting to the Premier League's ferocious intensity may take Sangare a little time, but he needed none whatsoever when he burst onto the scene at Lens last season, having arrived from Austrian side Rapid Vienna and become an instant success. One report from Yahoo Sports put his numbers at 33 appearances for Lens last season, scoring three goals after that early move from Rapid Vienna during the 2025/26 campaign.
It is easy to imagine one of the Premier League's so-called 'Big Six' taking a gamble on him this summer - and he would likely have flourished in that setting too.
The player who once jokingly challenged Bissouma for his place in the Mali team now has his sights set higher still.
"For me, Yves Bissouma is a fantastic player. He has a proven record in the highest level of Europe. Probably Yves could have reached even higher if he had taken different decisions in his career," says Saintfiet, comparing the two.
"Sangare is starting to be on a real top level now. Brentford is a good step, they have always shown in the past to have an eye for talented players who are maybe less known in England."
"But for me, knowing Mamadou Sangare, Brentford is not his final destination. He can reach the top in England."
What happens next
Brentford are due to open their Premier League season at home to Tottenham Hotspur on 22 August 2026, according to Reuters, giving Sangare an early opportunity to make his mark as the club's record signing in front of his new supporters.
