[5] In 1967, 20-year-old Keita left for France to join Saint-Étienne, where he won three consecutive Ligue 1 titles, including the double in 1968 and 1970.

In his last two seasons with Les Verts combined, he scored an astonishing 71 league goals – 42 alone in the 1970–71 campaign – but the team failed to win any silverware; in 1970, he was voted African Footballer of the Year.

Spanish newspapers were accused of racism when one headline read El Valencia va a por alemanes y vuelve con un negro ("Valencia goes out to buy Germans and comes back with a black man"), but he was always loved during his spell at the club, netting in his debut with the Che, a 2–1 La Liga home win against Real Oviedo,[8] and being eventually nicknamed La perla negra de Malí (The black pearl of Mali); he complained, however, that he was constantly played out of position.

[9] In 1976, after three years with Valencia, Keita signed for Sporting CP, where he replaced another legendary goalscorer, Héctor Yazalde.

He retired at the age of 34, after a couple of years with Greater Boston area-based New England Tea Men, in the United States.

[14] Guinean film director Cheik Doukouré used the life of Keita as a starting point for his 1994 work Le Ballon d'or.