Have you heard of Burkina Faso? The little, land-locked country in West Africa plagued by constant droughts and repeated military coups? Probably in recent times, thanks to its interim head of state, Capt. Ibrahim Traore’s repeated digs at the neo-colonial practices by western countries.
But a certain left-footed youngstar in his early-twenties has just let the footballing world know about ‘the land of honest men’ courtesy of his on-field exploits against Nottingham Forest, a side which is reminding us of its glorious past this season.
It was another busy Saturday afternoon for FPL managers, who were having a back seat after doing meticulous research, finalising the targets, and meeting the transfer deadline, when the PL weekend kick-started. A match between Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest had suddenly become important due to Forest’s dream run in the ongoing campaign and Iraola’s side coming fresh from the 4-1 hammering of an in-form Newcastle United.
Nottingham Forest were caught off guard several times by the Ouagadougou-born livewire who goes by the name, Dango Ouattara as he netted a hat-trick. When I checked the scoreline and out of curiosity saw his ownership in FPL, it read only 0.2%, which has now gone up to 0.4% at the time of writing.
Justin Kluivert, Bournemouth’s hat-trick-man from the previous gameweek, was again on target and set up another for young Dango. But the limelight quickly shifted from Pattrick’s son to the Burkina Faso international, who has eight goals from twenty five games for his national side.
But was Dango Ouattara just lucky enough to have raked in 21 pts in the 23rd gameweek of the Fantasy Premier League 2024-25? The answer is a big no. His underlying numbers would tell you that he outsmarted the Forest defence and its able GK to outscore his xG of only 1.04 — that’s thrice the sum. And remember, all of them were scored from an open-play.
Injury woes have been a regular headache for Iraola in what seems to be Bournemouth’s breakout season. When the young-Spaniard was at his wit’s end as both Evanilson and Enes Unal crashed out of the campaign in GW20 due to massive injuries, left-winger Dango appeared to be his man of the hour.
Having scored a couple of times before while coming from the bench, Dango has now started the last four games. He got an assist against Newcastle and probably played the best match of his life in a Bournemouth shirt last evening.
Ouattara is registered as a midfielder in FPL and rightfully so. Hence, Dango gives you a high ceiling while playing out of position, as he gets extra points for scoring a goal compared to a forward. On the other hand, there is the route to get another extra point for maintaining a clean sheet, as they did against Forest last evening.
With no sight of Evanilson or Unal till the very end of the season, not even in a distant dream, Dango will be leading the line for Bournemouth. He has buried the no.9 debate for Iraola’s side after last evening’s heroics.
The former FC Lorient man, who joined Bournemouth exactly two years ago, appears a bargain if not an absolute steal when we look at his price-tag in FPL. It seems that you pay £5m and get a cheat code for at least the next ten gameweeks, as Bournemouth embarks on a kind run of fixtures after GW24 which has too many green labels in terms of FDR(Fixture Difficulty Rating).
Moreover, FPL allows you to have a maximum of three forwards and in Ouattara, you can enjoy a fourth who would fetch you more points than any of your forwards whenever he hits the target. Also, being primarily a left-winger, the Burkina Faso attacker knows how to feed others, offering enough room for points in assists.
And just to remind you, Burkina Faso’s national anthem is known as ‘anthem of victory’! Who knows, he might be your go-to man to ensure victories in the FPL mini-leagues and may be a giant leap on the global leaderboard too.
