The player has proven both talented and resilient for Vermes’ Sporting KC team

As Ilie Sanchez gathered the ball in his own defensive half, Amadou Dia took a glance up the field at the open space down his side of the field.

A large gap had opened up on Dia’s left side as Nashville’s defense tucked in tight and Matt LaGrassa got sucked inside toward the ball.

But he didn’t just sprint into that space screaming for it. That would tighten the angle of the pass for Sanchez and make Dia a non-viable option. Instead, Dia slowed down his pace, not even crossing the halfway line until Sanchez had already sprung a ball into the open space in Nashville’s half.

The pass fell perfectly into Dia’s stride, and by the time Nashville’s LaGrassa had gotten into position to defend him, the Sporting Kansas City left back had already whipped in an early cross to set up Erik Hurtado’s Goal of the Week winner.

“(Dia) makes good, timely runs and he can serve the ball and so those things are a big aspect of being in the wide channels,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes told The Star in a recent interview.

But it’s not dumb luck that Sporting Kansas City has landed on 27-year-old Dia as the perfect left back to fit into the team’s tactics.

Dia — or “T,” as he’s known by those around him due to his middle name, Tidiane — spent much of his career as a forward or left midfielder.

It wasn’t until his sophomore year of college that Dia made the transition to left back, a move that would ultimately see him garner the attention of Sporting KC in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft.

Changing positions

Dia enjoyed a fruitful freshman campaign during his first year with the Clemson Tigers. He’d managed to score four goals in 15 appearances as an attacking player, scoring two game-winning goals for a program undergoing a rebuild under second-year coach Mike Noonan.

But even with Dia scoring the third-most goals on the team in his maiden campaign, Noonan had different ideas for the French-born attacker.

He wanted to move Dia to left back.

“It was pretty apparent, it’s the way we like to play. We like to create with our width, with our fullbacks in the attacking half of the field. And he had a good instinct as an attacker,” Noonan told The Star.

“He scored the odd goal but he was more of a provider than he was a goalscorer. So when we were recruiting him he had a great engine, he can run all day,” Noonan said. “And we just thought he’d be a prototypical, left-sided attacking fullback.”

Dia was a little hesitant at first. He enjoyed being an attacking player and contributing toward goals. He excelled at running in behind the lines of the defense or receiving the ball in isolated positions and facing defenders one-on-one.

That’s why Noonan and his assistant coach, Phil Jones, had to explain why they thought the move would be good for Dia. That he had all the attributes that make for a quality left back and he would see more of the ball as an attacking fullback than as a forward.

“When he told me, I embraced the challenge,” Dia told The Star. “I was like, this is a new position, something to learn that’s new, so I’m going to take it on whatever it is.”

Following the conclusion of the 2011 collegiate season, Dia began working with Jones on the intricacies of the position ahead of the spring. Things like how he positioned his body when receiving the ball or playing the ball out of defense to his teammate’s correct foot.

Simple things, yet a completely different mindset than what’s required when playing defense.

“You’ve got to be very coachable, and if the coach thinks it’s the best for the team then you’ve got to believe in him and trust that he knows what he’s doing,” Dia said.

By the time his sophomore season rolled around Dia was fully integrated into Clemson’s back line. He played 55 games for the Tigers, helping them to their first ACC Conference first-placed finish since 1998, first ACC Tournament championship since 2001 and first NCAA Tournament berth since 2006.

So when Sporting KC assistant coach Zoran Savic first came inquiring about Dia ahead of the 2015 draft, Noonan had one point that he wanted to make clear: “His best days are ahead of him.”

Touchline to touchline

Dia’s first stint in Kansas City wasn’t exactly what he envisioned.

When Vermes first set his eyes on Dia, who would eventually become the 20th-overall pick in the 2015 SuperDraft, he saw Dia as not only someone who could be an effective player in Major League Soccer, but specifically for Sporting KC.

Dia had the ability to get up the field and participate in the attack. As Noonan put it, he was the box-to-box midfielder version of a left back — he was touchline-to-touchline.

But in July 2016 — just 18 months after being drafted by Sporting KC — Dia was traded to the Montreal Impact.

“We just felt that it was the right time,” Vermes said. “We had some other ideas in our head so we made that choice.”

Six months later, Dia’s run with the Impact came to an abrupt end, leaving him without a team for half a year. Finally, in June 2017, Dia finally found home with USL club Phoenix Rising.

Dropping down from MLS to the USL was a wake-up call. But at the same time, it was perhaps the best move he could have made for his continued development as a defender.

“Credit to the staff and to the veterans up there as well like Didier Drogba and Jordan Stewart, Peter Rammage and Shaun Wright-Phillips,” Dia said. “I learned a lot and so with the players that we had on our team, we had some very good players, it gave me the chance to keep attacking like it was when I was at Clemson with my overlaps and my timing.”

The name that stands out from that list is Premier League and Champions League-winning forward Drogba, who joined Phoenix just months prior to Dia as a player-owner. Drogba also played in Montreal for two years while Dia was there before buying a minority-share in Phoenix and signing on as a player.

Drogba helped Dia a lot in terms of understanding a forward’s movement and where to play the ball in different situations.

But it wasn’t Drogba, a two-time African Footballer of the Year winner, who taught Dia the most during his time in Phoenix. Instead, it was Englishman and fellow left back Jordan Stewart.. Stewart has spent much of his career in the English soccer pyramid, making 69 Premier League appearances for Leicester and Watford in the early 2000s.

“Jordan Stewart, one of the biggest tips he told me was when you receive the ball do not kill it,” Dia said. “Always move with your first touch and that will always help you out. If you kill the ball then it’ll put you in a harder position and I’ve always thought about that and it helps me out a lot.”

Dia stayed in touch with Kansas City, too. The club has a track record of staying in touch with former players and bringing them back later in their careers, as was done with Roger Espinoza and Khiry Shelton.

For Dia, he would see them every preseason when Kansas City would face off against Phoenix in a friendly.

It allowed Vermes to keep a close eye on Dia.

“I think you get a different perspective when you leave one place and go to others. I think that he became a lot more efficient in parts of his game,” Vermes said. “I think he plays to his strengths and those are all things that a mature player has a very important thing in his game and that’s evolution and he had that.”

Waiting his turn

Dia had to wait for his turn upon returning to Sporting Kansas City in January 2020, just four days short of the five-year anniversary since he first joined KC.

First, he had to contend with left back Luis Martins, who joined the club the season prior. Then there was the challenge of youngster Jaylin Lindsey, who was getting minutes ahead of Dia at left back despite Lindsey being a natural right back.

But the breakthrough finally came on Sept. 6 in a 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo in which Dia played the full 90 minutes. He didn’t feature in KC’s following match but has since then rattled off seven-straight appearances, including four 90-minute shifts.

“When you get your opportunities you take advantage of them,” Vermes said. “And I think he got some opportunities and played every week and he was effective and helped the team get results and that is the most important thing.”

But it’s not just the fact that Dia helps the team gets results. It’s in the manner he does them.

Defensively, both Vermes and Noonan rave about his one-one-one defending capabilities.

“What a lot of people don’t look at, because he grew up as a wide left attacking player, as a defender he knows how attacking players are thinking and what they’re trying to do,” Noonan said.

He also now feels more comfortable playing the play out of the back. It’s something that Sporting KC has done for a long time, but a lack of comfort in doing so had kept Dia out of the team.

But going forward is what sets him apart from many other left backs in the league for Vermes.

Dia knows when to make the overlapping runs and when to make accurate crosses into dangerous positions such as the assist to Hurtado.

He studies the play of former great fullbacks Ashley Cole and Patrice Evra, as well as the current play of Canadian star Alphonso Davies and Liverpool fullbacks Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

“I watch Andy Robertson a bunch and how his crosses are just immaculate and the positions he gets in and things like that,” Dia said. “And I want to be a player like him, I have to improve the final third ball. I have to make sure to get the ball into people into the box.”

He makes note of when to make runs into the opposition’s half — too early and he cuts off the pass but too late and he’s behind the run of play.

Once he’s in the attacking third? Well, that comes naturally thanks to his whole youth career being spent as an attacker.

“He plays within his strengths. He doesn’t go outside of those areas, which when players do they usually make mistakes,” Vermes said. “So he stays very close to his strengths and I guess with this timing (of runs), he can combine.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 4:37 PM with the headline "The player has proven both talented and resilient for Vermes’ Sporting KC team."