It's September 2024, and Mamadou Sangare has been called up to the Mali squad for the very first time. As is normal in modern football, new players have to do an initiation song while stood on top of a chair.

As Yves Bissouma introduced him onto the 'stage', the Mali captain asked Sangare what position he'd like to play in the team.

"Yours," Sangare told Bissouma, in a big, bold statement.

"I loved that," Tom Saintfiet, the Mali manager at the time, tells Sky Sports. "He's an open, intelligent person - and confident. He knows what he can do."

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Sangare did not end up taking Bissouma's national team spot - they played alongside each other in the Mali team - but the 24-year-old has taken his place as Mali's big talent in the Premier League.

Brentford take on Tottenham on the opening weekend of the season and Sangare will take to the field as the Bees' new record signing. Bissouma - released by Spurs this summer and still without a club - will not.

The Mali midfielder joining Brentford for £39m was deemed quite a coup for the west London club. Sangare was one of RC Lens' most important players as they finished second in Ligue 1 and won the French Cup.

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He was subsequently named in Ligue 1's Team of the Year, over Joao Neves and Fabian Ruiz.

Put him in Barcelona's team, and he will have an important role

The 24-year-old could have stayed and played Champions League football with the French side, but instead chose Brentford, when so many other top clubs were circling around him.

"I remember a few months ago when I was talking to him, there were some different names already mentioned," Saintfiet recalls. "There were some top clubs in the English Premier League, the real giants."

Sangare may be new to the average Premier League fan but those who followed Ligue 1 last season will know exactly why this is a promising signing.

The young midfielder effectively earned his status as the 'Elliot Anderson of French football'. He was in a league of his own in terms of ball-winning numbers and defensive statistics.

But Sangare is far from simply a defensive midfielder. "No, no," says Saintfiet, who even played Sangare as a wider midfielder in the national team.

"If you talk about ball recovery, tackling, then you look really to the Claude Makelele, the Gennaro Gattuso, the real die-hard No 6. And for me, he's not really a No 6. He's different from that.

"He's more of a No 8 than a No 6, and he can even play as a No 10. His multifunctional qualities are his strengths."

That is good news for Brentford, who have a more than capable No 6 option emerging onto the Premier League scene. If Sangare is the 'Elliot Anderson of French football' then Yehor Yarmoliuk was the 'Elliot Anderson of Brentford' last season, looking at the numbers.

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So while Yarmoliuk protects the Brentford back four, Sangare can cause opposition players more problems further forward.

"When he has the ball, he is very confident on the ball," says Saintfiet. "He is able to find solutions very fast under pressure, to give good passes, both short and long. So he's much more than only someone who can recover a ball, in my eyes.

"Put him in Barcelona's team, and he will have an important role in such a team - because of his style of playing. He is confident on the ball, he is very smart in his passing. Even if he is strong in ball recovery, he combines that with so many other skills, which is so important in modern football."

The other area where Sangare stands out is his long-range shooting. Only two players in Ligue 1 attempted more shots from outside the box than the Lens player last season - and if Sangare can improve this skill at Brentford, then the hype will only grow.

The early signs are positive - as Sangare opened his Brentford account with a long-range strike in their 7-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt.

"I think he can score a few more goals a season," says Saintfiet. "He has a very good shot, he has a good free-kick, but he doesn't use it. In training, I'm always impressed with his shots from distance and during small-side games.

"And maybe, sometimes he is too much a team player. He wants to give the chance to another player. He gives a pass when he has the opportunity to take the shot himself. So I think he can be a little bit being more selfish in front of the goal.

"A player who delivers final passes, assists, that's welcome. But if you can have three, four, five goals a season, that will be better. And I think he has that ability to do that. He only has to take now the responsibility to show it."

Sangare may need a bit of time to settle into the Premier League's high-intensity football but he didn't need that time in his debut campaign at Lens last season - becoming an immediate success story after joining from Austrian side Rapid Vienna.

He comes across as a player that the Premier League's 'Big Six' could have easily taken a punt on this summer - and he would have thrived in that environment too.

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The player who once fought for Bissouma's spot in the Mali team is thinking about bigger and better things.

"For me, Yves Bissouma is a fantastic player," says Saintfiet, comparing the two now. "He has a proven record in the highest level of Europe. Probably Yves could have reached even higher if he had taken different decisions in his career.

"Sangare is starting to be on a real top level now. Brentford is a good step, they have always shown in the past to have an eye for talented players who are maybe less known in England.

"But for me, knowing Mamadou Sangare, Brentford is not his final destination. He can reach the top in England."