Leverkusen's Quansah Keeps Calm and Carries On in His Steady Rise to Football Fame

"From the outside, it appears crazy," the young defender says, as he looks back on his summer just gone, when rapid transformation felt like a constant. "However, that's just how it goes ... football is a unpredictable game."

A Brief Summary

Days after winning the U21 European Championship with England at the conclusion of June, Quansah opted to depart from his childhood club, to go to Bayer Leverkusen in a multi-million pound transfer.

The significant transfer sum brought high expectations as the 22-year-old was tasked with settling in in a new country and at a team where the turnover was substantial. Erik ten Hag had taken over to succeed the previous coach and a host of star performers were gone or going – including several high-profile names, Piero Hincapié, Jeremie Frimpong, prominent athletes, experienced professionals, Lukas Hradecky and Jonathan Tah.

Bundesliga Debut

Quansah's first league appearance came on August 23rd at home to their opponents and the central defender scored after five minutes, though the achievement was overshadowed by tragedy. All he could think about was Diogo Jota, who was killed in a car accident. Quansah executed his teammate's signature celebration as a tribute.

"To have a goal on your first Bundesliga match, at home, after the opening moments, is definitely a whirlwind," Quansah says. "However, my dominant emotion was that it was a tribute to Diogo."

Early Challenges

The player could have been forgiven for wondering what he had committed to at Leverkusen. After the encouraging beginning in their first league game, they succumbed to a 2-1 defeat and the following game on August 30th was just as bad. Ten Hag's team threw away 2-0 and 3-1 leads to draw 3-3 at their reduced opponents, the tying goal coming in added time. It was no longer his responsibility for much longer. He was sacked on 1 September.

Staying Focused

Quansah does not come across as the kind to worry. If composure characterizes his playing style, it was on show during the conversation he participated in after joining England for the international friendly against Wales and the qualifying match against their next opponents.

Quansah has remained focused under the current coach, the Danish tactician, and persisted in doing what he always intended to do at the team – compete. Hjulmand has established consistency. His team have three wins and one draw in four league matches along with draws in each of their Champions League ties. But there is a more significant number that encourages Quansah, even bringing a sense of justification. It is the one which shows he has played every minute of the team's season.

National Team Attention

It is something that Thomas Tuchel has observed. The national team manager was a fan last season, including him when he announced his initial selection. After omitting him in the summer so that Quansah could concentrate on the youth tournament, he gave him a last-minute inclusion in September when the experienced defender was forced to withdraw.

Still to win his first cap, Quansah must have impressed sufficiently in practice sessions and around the camp because he was selected at the outset in Tuchel's squad selection for the upcoming matches, effectively as a fifth centre-back with Stones fit again. The dream is a first appearance. It is one more milestone he would certainly handle with ease.

Decision Making

"At Leverkusen, the club were interested in me for a while and that's not just from the coach," Quansah explains. "Their interest existed prior to his arrival. So knowing it was a sort of internal decision and things would remain consistent with which manager was to take over ... it was easy for me to choose this path.

"We had a numerous squad members departing and it's always tough when you see important figures leave. It has been tough to build the leadership groups but the outcomes we have had [under Hjulmand] demonstrate that we have got a competitive team with talented individuals. It is requiring patience to build and we are not where we want to be. But if we are getting results and avoiding defeats that is a solid foundation to start."

Liverpool Departure

It had to have been a difficult separation for Quansah to depart from his long-time club, his club from the age of five, where he experienced so many significant occasions – such as the league cup triumph over their London rivals in 2023‑24 when he was introduced as an extra-time substitute.

Quansah was also a part of the previous campaign's domestic championship success. Yet his perspective of much of that was not the perspective he would have preferred. He was an unused substitute on multiple matches in the competition, his limited playing time falling short compared to his numbers from the prior season when he started nine games.

Career Development

"I consistently developed off top-level professionals around me at Liverpool and it's been incredibly beneficial for my professional development," he says. "But as a young centre-back, you require match experience and I'm going to be needing hundreds of games to be where I want to be.

"I just wanted game time and when you are at a top-level club, it's not guaranteed because there are elite performers throughout the squad. I wanted an environment where they can trust that I might make mistakes at times but they will look under that and recognize I can keep pushing and pushing."

Foundation Building

Quansah recalls his temporary transfer to the lower division club in the second-half of 2022-23 where he debuted at professional level – multiple matches, to be precise. There were "multiple reality checks", he says with a smile, beginning with his first game; a 5-1 defeat at Morecambe.

"That was a genuine revelation," Quansah reflects. "It was a really valuable part of my career because I wanted to make the next step to regular senior competition. Each match I learned something new. That's where I knew how valuable experience and match practice was. You could suggest it influenced my choice in the summer."