Premier League duo Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leicester City reportedly wanted Edmond Tapsoba before he joined Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen.
To the casual observer, it would appear that Edmond Tapsoba has been patrolling the Bayer Leverkusen back line for the best part of a decade.
Rarely has a 21-year-old central defender looked so assured, so accomplished, so faultlessly commanding in his first few weeks at a new club, in a new league, while adapting to a whole new style, system and language.
An £18 million January signing from Vitoria Guimaraes, perhaps the best compliment that can be paid to Tapsoba is that he makes a Peter Bosz defence work.
The Bayer Leverkusen coach has become famous (or should that be infamous) for a defensive line so high that it often borders on the suicidal. But it is no coincidence that, since Tapsoba arrived, Germany’s sleeping giants appear to have awoken from their slumber, picking up ten points from a possible 12 to catapult themselves into an enthralling title-race.
Teen sensation Erling Haaland had only failed to score in one of his first eight games in Dortmund colours.
Europe’s hottest centre-forward drew a very rare blank when he went head-to-head with a certain Burkina Faso international.
‘He’s outstanding’
O Jogo reports that Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leicester City were beaten to the punch by the 2001 Champions League runners-up late in the January window. And it’s fair to say Tapsoba is already making his £18 million price-tag look like the bargain of the, admittedly new, century.
“He is incredibly good for us,” former Germany international Sven Bender told BILD, while Nadiem Amiri adds; “I think he’s outstanding. He plays as cool as if he had been in Leverkusen for ten years.”
Leicester and Wolves, flying high in England and dreaming of Champions League qualification, are a reflection of what is capable of you get your recruitment spot on with both clubs unearthing gems on an annual basis.
Tapsoba, however, looks like a rare example of one that got away.
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