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.”

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