{"id":368751,"date":"2025-12-25T04:21:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T04:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368751\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T04:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T04:21:05","slug":"i-want-to-be-the-best-midfielder-in-the-world-man-utd-transfer-target-carlos-baleba-outlines-lofty-ambitions-amid-nod-to-man-city-star-rodri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368751\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I want to be the best midfielder in the world’ – Man Utd transfer target Carlos Baleba outlines lofty ambitions amid nod to Man City star Rodri"},"content":{"rendered":"

However, as he continues to try and rediscover the form which brought about United\u2019s interest in his services, Baleba remains full of ambition ahead of Cameroon\u2019s AFCON opener against Gabon on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Revealing his desire to be known as the world\u2019s best midfielder in the future, Brighton\u2019s No. 17 has opened up about the whole host of players he is studying – both past and present – in order to achieve his lofty aim.<\/p>\n

Listing the likes of Monaco star Paul Pogba, former Bayern Munich man Thiago Alcantara, Napoli ace Kevin De Bruyne and Barcelona legend Sergio Busquets, Baleba told Sky Sports<\/a>: “I watch a lot of highlights from them. I watch their positioning and their scanning. But I try to be like Carlos Baleba.<\/p>\n

“It’s an ambition [of mine] to be the best midfielder in the world. I just want to work hard, to take some advice, to take something from the midfielders. Not just in the Premier League, because I learned a lot from here.”<\/p>\n

Continuing to name the players he is closely observing in his bid to become the best in his position, he added: “Rodri and others, but I try to take [lessons from] outside of the Premier League. Like Ligue 1, Vitinha or Joao Neves. In La Liga, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets. I try to learn every day I’m learning. I’m watching them on YouTube.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, as he continues to try and rediscover the form which brought about United\u2019s interest in his services,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[154970,73444,123512,138182,4896,3788,1084,403,99,6641],"class_list":["post-368751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-brighton","tag-c-baleba","tag-cameroon","tag-manchester-city","tag-manchester-united","tag-premier-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}