Five goals for the club, five goals for him
Vendee FC La Roche have scored five times since the National season kicked off. Mansour Samb has scored all five. In three games.
The club sit third. Frederic Reculeau did not have to look far for his focal point up front: he landed a striker in July and has built the side around him ever since.
The 23-year-old Senegalese forward came this summer on loan from Danish club Horsens. Three weeks later, he is a talking point in the closing days of the French window.
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A rise that stayed off the radar
Anyone discovering him now has missed the early chapters. In his first season at Cholet, Samb rattled in 42 goals, 30 of them in the regional R2 division and 12 in the French Cup. He added 25 more in R1 with Les Sables-d’Olonne.
Long, strong, quick, with a gift for scoring that nobody taught him. Amateur defences in western France remember him well enough.
Pau FC spotted it before anyone else. The Ligue 2 club had gone through the proper steps while he was at Les Sables-d’Olonne, and it looked done. Then the Bearnais hierarchy pulled the plug at the last minute.
So he went to Denmark instead, to Horsens in the second tier. A minor injury, a coaching change, and Samb watched his club climb to the Danish top flight from the bench. The return to France suited everyone, player, camp and Danish club. He needed games.
Two divisions above, and calling
According to Foot Mercato, one Ligue 1 club has already sounded out Horsens about buying him now and leaving him at La Roche until June. Several Ligue 2 sides are weighing something more direct: cut the loan short and take him into the squad straight away.
A player who landed in the third tier weeks ago is wanted two levels up. That is what the last days of a window do.
La Roche, for their part, would rather keep their striker until the end.
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