While most of the Wolves squad are being put through their paces in Miami, Boubacar Traore is on Olympics duty with Mali.
Gary O’Neil and his players are gearing up for the second stage of their pre-season, and have games coming up against West Ham United, Crystal Palace and RB Leipzig.
Currently, O’Neil is without four players.
Those are the three Portugal internationals Pedro Neto, Nelson Semedo and Jose Sa following their exploits at the Euros.
And Boubacar Traore, who is currently with the Mali squad at the Olympics in Paris.
Yesterday, the Molineux midfielder took to the pitch at the Games for the first time.
Boubacar Traore puts in steady display as Mali draw 1-1 with Israel in first Olympics match
For Traore, this is a good opportunity to get minutes under his belt.
O’Neil might have prevented him from playing at the Games. But ultimately, Traore was not a regular for Wolves last season and the manager can probably see the benefit of Traore going to the Games.
Yesterday, Traore was actually Mali’s captain for their opening game against Israel.
The game finished 1-1, with Maliweb reporting that Traore and his teammates were dominant in the game, but lacked ‘efficiency’.
Israel actually took the lead after Diallo Hamidou’s clearance found the back of his own net. But Mali showed good character to get back into the contest, with Cheikna Doumbia equalising.
As per Sofascore though, Traore was pretty solid in terms of his ball use. He completed 38/44 (86%) passes, with three of those being ‘key’, suggesting he did look to be incisive at times.
86% accuracy is a decent completion rate for Traore, who has arguably not shown himself to be a majorly accurate passer since moving to Wolves from Metz.
Traore – who was recently linked with a move to RC Lens – also won 5/10 duels in the match.
Mali’s next game is against Japan on Saturday, with their final group stage match being against Paraguay, in a game that could see Traore face his Wolves teammate Enso Gonzalez.
A search of Traore’s name on X shows that some fans were left impressed by the Wolves man’s display. One Wolves fan, @wwfcs33, described him as ‘an absolute gem of a player’.
A big season coming up at Wolves for Traore
2024/25 is a big season for Traore, who hasn’t truly arrived yet at Wolves since coming in from Metz.
Undoubtedly, there have been exciting glimpses of what he can do.
But it has been difficult for him due to the fantastic consistency of Mario Lemina and Joao Gomes, who are players O’Neil rates extremely highly.
Towards the end of last term though, Traore started to get a bit more involvement – with his performance against Arsenal back in April particularly impressive.
One gets the feeling though that Traore will need to show a bit more to try and break into that Wolves midfield in 2024/25. Otherwise, there may be question marks about him as a long-term option.