, who transferred from Liverpool to Leverkusen's defender Konsa this summer for £35 million, talked about the summer window he just experienced, his decision to leave his childhood club, his start in the Bundesliga and his selection for England in an interview.
How to review the summer you just passed? From winning the U21 European Cup, to transfer to Leverkusen, to the team changing coach quickly, it feels crazy, right?
From the outside world, this seems crazy. But that's it... Football itself is a crazy sport.
You scored in just 5 minutes of your debut in the Bundesliga. What was your mood at that time?
In his home game in his Bundesliga debut, he scored in five minutes, which was undoubtedly quick. But my strongest feeling at the time was that this goal was to pay tribute to Jota.
Shortly after you joined, head coach Teng Hach was fired. Does this make you doubt your decision?
The Leverkusen Club has been following me for a while, and it’s not just an interest from (former) head coach Teng Hach. They were already interested in me before he was appointed. So, knowing that this is an internal decision of a club, no matter which coach takes office, will not change that…it makes it easy for me to make (join) decisions.
The team lost many key players at the beginning of the season. How did the team rebuild after new coach Yulman took office?
We have a lot of players leaving and when you lose key players, it's always tough. Building a new leadership team is difficult, but the results we achieved (under Yulman) show that we have a great team and a strong player. It takes time to build, and we are not yet at the same place we want. But if we can still achieve results without losing, then this is a good starting point.
Leaving Liverpool is the club you have played for since you were 5 years old. This must be a difficult decision, right?
I have been learning from some of the best players around me at Liverpool, which has been very beneficial to my career. But as a young centre-back, you need to play opportunities, I need to play hundreds of games to achieve what I want.
So the main reason for leaving is the game time?
I just want game time, and when you're on a team like Liverpool, that's not guaranteed because the court is full of world-class players. I want a place where they can trust me, even if I make mistakes sometimes, they will look down on those mistakes and see that I can keep moving forward.
What impact will your experience of loaning to the Bristol Rangers in the second half of the 2022-23 season have on your decision this summer?
There were many "alarm bells" moments in that experience (laughs). My debut was a 1-5 loss to Morecum on the road. That really opened my eyes. That was a very valuable part of my career because I wanted to take the next step to play first team games. I learned something new in every game. It was there that I understood how valuable experience and game opportunities are. You can say that experience influenced my decisions in the summer.
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