Aaaaaadama Traoooooreeeee | OneFootball

Did a name ever fit The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army better? The man who resembled a Seven Nation Army marauding towards defenders with the ball at his feet.

For a bloke as striking in appearance and as eyecatching in performance, it’s all been a bit low key for Adama in what would appear to be his final season as a Wolves player. Five years have passed since a lightning bolt of blonde highlights, rippling muscles and searing pace arrived at Molineux, to much fanfare and intrigue. In that time, Adama has experienced the full Wolves fan playbook: scepticism, idolism, full-on bewilderment and by the end even a sense of apathy.

It’s gone from genuine claims that Wolves had one of the most dangerous forwards on the planet to the point where his intelligence has been questioned on innumerable occasions. But if there’s one thing that has never wavered, by all accounts, it has been Adama’s professionalism and commitment to the cause. The question has always been ‘which manager can truly unleash Adama?’ and it’s this particular personality trait that I believe really draws each of his managers in, because if he wasn’t this way he’d probably be labelled ‘unmanageable’.

On-pitch Adama is arguably the single most thrilling presence I’ve seen grace the turf. He exists in a space where he is constantly on the verge of doing something exceptional. There aren’t that many players who warrant that kind of anticipation. It’s a certain type of sound that greets the ball arriving at their feet. A creak of the seats for those sitting, a mumble of ‘go on…’ to those stood around the terraces, all providing a soundtrack to another jaunt upfield.

It’s true, on many occasions Adama would remain on that verge, not quite reaching the levels we know he can achieve. But when he did there was nothing quite like it. And when he did, it tended to involve Raul Jimenez. Jimenez’s injury didn’t just derail his own career. Adama was flying high at the end of the 2019/2020 season. To reduce his impact to numbers is to misunderstand the influence he has had, but 16 goal contributions across all competitions was a high point for the flying Spaniard. It could have all been so different had his lung-busting efforts to win a penalty versus Sevilla not ended in the usual, inevitable dispatching of a penalty by Jimenez. And from that moment on, the man supplying the ammo simply had no one to fire them.

There’s an argument to say he is the single best player on the planet in the space level with the penalty area, wide on the right flank. Countless times he’s been double marked in that particular patch of grass and still, the cross comes in, or still the defenders are beaten. Regular, legal means of stopping him were often futile.

The COVID era is distinctly unmemorable for many reasons, but hearing opposition teams shouting ‘bring him down’ or ‘foul him’ as he sets off taking on player after player spoke to the futility they felt. Even in his final Molineux appearance, as he signed off with one last dance to effectively set up Hwang’s goal, Sean Dyche commented on how Amadou Onana should have committed a professional foul on Adama in the build up. These are the conditions he was playing under in every minute he was on the pitch. Lesser men would have lashed out, perhaps even incurring the wrath of the officials. Adama never wavered, he understood.

Talking of officials, Adama’s presence always seemed to mean he played by different rules. There was a different bar for fouling him, no doubt because of his size and his stature, it would often take two, three even four attempts at stopping him before referees decided it was enough. This even led to two separate shoulder dislocations on the field, spawning ‘Baby Oil-Gate’ and rendering Traore as a bit of a joke figure. But so few footballers have ever caused such consternation within their foes.

It’s remarkable still how such an outwardly confident man, all bejewelled and glistening with a shock of hair, whether it be the Predator-style dreadlocks or his flash of blonde in a Mohican, has always come across a fragile soul. Nuno made a point of not dishing out individual praise to certain individuals, but watch his comments around Adama at the time and you could be forgiven for thinking he was his first-born son.

It is perhaps this element of his personality which doesn’t tally up with what football expects of Adama. He was given a gift, the like of which none of us have ever seen with his ability to go past people. That’s carried him throughout his career to the top level. But he’s never courted the fame, publicity and idolism that comes with it. Imagine Adama with Zlatan’s Main Character Syndrome. He’d be a different proposition. All the times we’ve been behind in games and it’s ‘Adama or Bust’, the ball constantly filtered out to him, hoping, praying he works some magic, while the rest of the team stands and waits. But it’s just not him.

He departs (probably) as a man who many will suggest never fulfilled his potential, or someone who will evoke memories of frustration over the exhilaration, of what-ifs rather than ‘remember when…’. It’s difficult to sum up his Wolves career in a concise way given the rollercoaster it has been and the consistent search to bottle up that spell where he was a bona fide Premier League star. But as a fan, I can safely say I was never disappointed to see Adama’s name on the teamsheet as it always came with that unspeakable feeling of ‘maybe today we will see some magic’. That’s rare and it’s going. We will miss it. When you buy a ticket for a football match you can’t buy one on a promise of goals or minute-to-minute entertainment. But when you saw Adama was playing, it was something to look forward to.

Go well, Adama Traore.