Unwanted at Paris Saint-Germain since his return on loan from RB Leipzig, Senegalese central defender Abdou Diallo finally left the capital club this past summer to join the Qatari club Al-Arabi, where he reunited with the former Parisian Rafinha before the arrival of Marco Verratti. In an interview given to the YouTube channel ASACthe Lion with 23 selections confided to having had leads in Europe before flying to the Gulf: “this is my seventh club. It’s a transition that can be stressful but also decisive in my career, so you can’t make a mistake. When you have a series of transfers, you gain experience and you see things a little differently. (…) Qatar? This was not my plan at the start of the transfer window. I made it a priority to continue in Europe, in the five major championships, even if I think I have done the tour in Germany. (…) I felt like I wanted to see something else. France ? I couldn’t see myself going anywhere other than Paris. I did Monaco (from 2011 to 2017, editor’s note), which is in my heart, and PSG, in my heart. It made sense for me to limit myself in France to these two clubs. However, I had some interesting approaches, but it didn’t make sense.”
In the rest of the interview, the former AS Monaco and Borussia Dortmund also explains having been in discussions with Saudi Arabia. But his career choice, supported by the family, ultimately sent him to Fareeg Al Ahlam (Dream Team, in Arabic) for the next four seasons: “with age and experience, you understand that you have to listen to yourself. You only have one career, it’s yours. To choose is to give up, so you have to be ready to do it. I didn’t force my hand. Subsequently, there was Saudi Arabia, which was a key player in the transfer window. Obviously, I was attentive to it and I had big discussions with a Saudi club in particular, which did not come to fruition. I was very tough in negotiations, I’m not going to hide it. Qatar presented itself like a hair in the soup, I was not planning there at all, because it was not as active as Europe or Saudi Arabia. But there are no coincidences in life, I managed to have everything I hoped for and have this feeling of: “Yeah, this is where I belong.” My little brother (Ibrahima Diallo, ex-Southampton, had signed there a month earlier, so that’s a big argument in addition.”
