Stade de Reims has signed Daouda Guindo, a 23-year-old left-back, free from his contract after two seasons at Brest. The Reims club hopes he will bring valuable Ligue 1 experience. Guindo has a Ligue 1 record and a market value of 2 million euros. Data' Scout, on the other hand, tells a different story. Reims wants to return to Ligue 1. To achieve this, the club recruits players with experience in the elite. The logic of the Guindo operation holds on paper: a 23-year-old left-back, formed in a professional, having played 25 Ligue 1 matches this season with Brest, free and therefore without transfer compensation. The type of profile that checks the boxes of an ambitious Ligue 2 club. The problem is what the numbers behind the name say. Daouda Guindo: A defensive profile in a trompe-l'oeil Data' Scout attributes to Guindo a performance index of 53 as Left-Back (79th in Ligue 1) and 51 as Right-Back (80th). What a centile of 53 says: the player does better than 53% of his direct competitors at the same position, all stats being reduced to 90 minutes. In other words, he is in the strict low average of his championship. The comparison with the median left-back of Ligue 1 is without appeal. On most offensive criteria, Guindo is below the median, sometimes very much so. Dribbles successful: centile 6. Offensives won: centile 5. Progressive runs: 10. These numbers do not describe a left-back who hesitates, they describe a player who tries almost nothing forward. His profile is not null, it is simply very defensive and poorly calibrated for a club that wants to rise. His slipped tackles reach a centile of 98, which places him among the best in Ligue 1 in this exercise. He disputes a lot of defensive duels (centile 60) and his interceptions are correct (59). He tries to progress the ball by pass rather than by dribble, which fits a clean-up profile rather than an offensive left-back. His successful centers are capped at 40 centile. His decisive passes are 17, his key passes are 16. For a Reims that must create danger and dominate in Ligue 2, these data are interrogative. Data' Scout judges that he would fit into the Reims rotation and could weigh in from the first season. His profile approaches that of Sergio Akieme, reference of the position in the club. Physically, he should adapt without difficulty to the athletic requirements of Reims. But the orange signal remains there: Brest and Reims evolve with very different styles. Tactical adaptation will take time. In the internal ranking at the position, he points to the 3rd rank behind H. Sekine (note 62) and Akieme (58), with a score of 53. M. Busi closes the list at 50. Guindo arrives therefore in a context of competition, not as an undisputed reinforcement. Reims does not pay transfer fees. This is the main argument. A 23-year-old player with 25 Ligue 1 matches in his legs, free, is a market opportunity. But the data remind that the free status does not compensate for the inadaptability of the profile if the objective is to build a left-back capable of making a difference in Ligue 2. Guindo can be a good second left-back. Assigning him a starting role should be an option.