After years of cementing his status as one of the best defenders in Europe with Serie A giants Napoli, Koulibaly has enjoyed a fabulous culmination to his career in recent times.
He captained Senegal to the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, and a year later finally made the move to the Premier League, heading to London to join two-time Champions League winners Chelsea..
It hasn't all been plain sailing in a testing year for both himself and the team as a whole under new ownership, but the 31-year-old is relishing the chance to be a key figure at Stamford Bridge and has opened up to GOAL on life around his new colleagues.
Koulibaly now finds himself partnering up with Thiago Silva in defence, and when asked which team-mate he would steal experience from if possible, he made no secret of his admiration for the Brazilian.
"I would steal the experience of Thiago Silva," he said "I’m lucky to play with him today, he’s a really good defender, a legend for everybody in football. At 37, to do what he’s doing is really amazing. For me, it would be nice if I could steal his experience.”
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The central defender was also quizzed on a few other key attributes in a test of how well he knows his squad for GOAL's Simply The Best series.
He named Reece James as the club's fastest player and Ruben Loftus-Cheek as the strongest, but in a perhaps somewhat surprising twist, name dropped Mateo Kovacic when asked who Chelsea's smartest player was.
One that flies under the radar among the star-studded squad at the Bridge, Kovacic has been nothing short of exceptional in the last year or two, with N'Golo Kante battling fitness issues and young Enzo Fernandez still finding his feet.
But that wasn't all Koulibaly told all about. In fact, he didn't mince his words when quizzed on who the worst dressed is, initially after naming defensive colleague Trevoh Chalobah as the best dressed.
"The worst dressed is Marc Cucurella," he jokingly said. "We have to improve everything, from the top to the [bottom]. Everything. He cannot dress.
"I don’t know how his wife is with him, maybe she’s the one that has to choose the clothes for him now. [Because] choosing on his own, he’s making a mess!”
It turns out that Cucurella himself had voted fellow Spaniard Cesar Azpilicueta as the worst dressed, but Koulibaly was willing to cut the club legend some slack: “No, it’s him [Cucurella], I swear. Azpi has a lot of kids, so he just puts training [clothes] on and he goes to training, so I can understand. But Cucu is 24, he cannot dress like this!”
Check out the full episode of Simply The Best with Chelsea's Koulibaly on GOAL's YouTube channel.
