Who is Sebastiaan Bornauw? The latest as Leeds United close in on €6m transfer with medical planned — YEP 30/6/25
By Kyle Newbould
Everything you need to know on Leeds United’s latest
transfer target Sebastiaan Bornauw.
Leeds United are closing in on summer signing number three
with a permanent deal for VfL Wolfsburg defender Sebastiaan Bornauw
progressing.
The YEP exclusively reported on Monday morning that Bornauw
is close to finalising his move to Elland Road, following the agreement of an
initial €6million (£5.14m) fee. The 26-year-old has one year left on his
current contract at the Volkswagen Arena and is expected to put pen to paper on
a four-year deal at Elland Road, with medical tests underway.
Bornauw is now likely to become Leeds’ second summer arrival
from Wolfsburg, following free agent striker Lukas Nmecha, and the Belgian
arrives one week after £15m fellow centre-back Jaka Bijol. Below, the YEP has
all the key information on the latest Elland Road target.
Who is Sebastiaan Bornauw?
Bornauw looks set to become Leeds’ second defensive signing
of the summer, having spent the vast majority of his career at centre-back. The
26-year-old is right-footed and therefore most natural on that side, while he
can also operate on the left side of centre-back or as a sturdy right-back.
The defender has just completed his fourth campaign at
Wolfsburg where he made 15 Bundesliga appearances, eight of them starts. That
was his lowest number of games at the Volkswagen Arena, with three previous
seasons all sitting somewhere between 20 and 30 league matches.
Prior to joining Wolfsburg for around £11.5m in July 2021,
Bornauw was a regular at their Bundesliga rivals FC Köln for two seasons,
having first broken into senior football at Anderlecht in his native Belgium.
As a well-travelled youngster, he was first picked up by Moroccan outfit Wydad
Athletic Club before returning to Brussels with Dender and then moving to
Anderlecht’s academy.
All in all, Bornauw has 178 first-team appearances under his
belt at club-level across Belgium and Germany, with Leeds once again looking to
add experienced players in the prime of their careers - like Nmecha and Bijol,
he is also 26. The Whites target also has four caps for the Belgian national
team, having debuted in October 2020.
What kind of defender is Sebastiaan Bornauw?
Standing at 6ft 3ins, Bornauw is another example of Leeds
prioritising physicality in their recruitment and the four-cap Belgian
international is certainly able to handle himself against combative strikers.
According to FBRef.com, he won a whopping 4.11 aerial duels per 90 minutes at
Wolfsburg last season, which places him in the top one percent of centre-backs
across Europe’s top five leagues for that particular metric.
For reference, £15m signing Bijol won an average of 3.31
aerial duels per 90 minutes last season, while Pascal Struijk and Joe Rodon
averaged 3.6 and 2.59 respectively. Bornauw is also around the top 20 per cent
of centre-backs in Europe’s top five leagues for interceptions (1.37 per 90)
and blocks (1.6 per 90), suggesting he is a strong defender of the most
dangerous areas in and around his box.
Bornauw also made a strong enough impression at Koln to
encourage Wolfsburg to spend over £11m back in 2021, with plenty of excitement
around the Volkswagen Arena at that particular signing. And speaking at the
time, then-sporting director Marcel Schäfer gave an idea of why his side were
so keen to secure a move for the centre-back.
“Sebastiaan has made a name for himself through strong and
consistent performances in the Bundesliga,” Schäfer said. “We rate very highly
his footballing qualities, his mentality and the attitude that he embodies on
the pitch. He’s exactly the player we want for the defence and therefore we’re
delighted that we could persuade him to come to VfL.”