"From the outside, it appears insane," Jarell Quansah says, as he looks back on his summer just gone, when rapid transformation felt like a constant. "But it is one of them ... football is a unpredictable game."
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 big fee brought high expectations as the 22-year-old was tasked with finding his feet in a foreign land and at a team where the turnover was dramatic. The new manager had stepped in to succeed Xabi Alonso and a host of key players were departing or already left – including Florian Wirtz, key squad members, Jeremie Frimpong, Amine Adli, Granit Xhaka, Lukas Hradecky and team leaders.
Quansah's first league appearance came on August 23rd at their home ground to their opponents and the central defender found the net after the opening minutes, though the goal was overshadowed by sadness. All he could think about was his former Liverpool teammate, who was killed in a car accident. Quansah executed his teammate's signature celebration as a tribute.
"To have a goal on your Bundesliga debut, in front of home fans, after five minutes, is certainly a whirlwind," Quansah states. "But my overwhelming feeling was that it was a homage to Diogo."
The player could have been forgiven for wondering what he had committed to at Leverkusen. From the promising start in their first league game, they succumbed to a 2-1 defeat and the next match on 30 August was equally disappointing. Ten Hag's team squandered comfortable advantages 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.
Quansah doesn't appear to be the type to fret. If calmness characterizes his playing style, it was evident during the conversation he gave after being selected for the national team for the Wembley friendly against Wales and the World Cup qualifier against Latvia.
Quansah has remained focused under the current coach, the Danish tactician, and persisted in doing what he originally planned to do at the club – compete. The new manager has established consistency. His team have three wins and one draw in four league matches along with ties in each of their European matches. But there is a broader statistic that motivates the player, even bringing a measure of vindication. It is the one which shows he has played every minute of the club's campaign.
It is one that the England head coach has observed. The national team manager was a admirer last season, including him when he announced his initial selection. After omitting him in June so that Quansah could concentrate on the youth tournament, he gave him a last-minute inclusion in the autumn when John Stones was compelled to pull out.
Still to win his first cap, Quansah must have impressed sufficiently in practice sessions and around the camp because he was named at the beginning in the manager's squad selection for Wales and Latvia, effectively as a additional defensive option with the regular starter returning. The aspiration is a first appearance. It is another thing he would certainly handle with ease.
"At Leverkusen, the team were interested in me for a while and that's not just from the manager [Ten Hag]," Quansah says. "They were interested before he got appointed. So knowing it was a sort of organizational choice and things would remain consistent with which manager was to take over ... it was straightforward for me to choose this path.
"There were a numerous squad members leaving and it's consistently challenging when you see important figures leave. It has been difficult to build the leadership groups but the results we have had [under Hjulmand] show that we have got a good squad with quality players. 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."
It had to have been a difficult separation for Quansah to leave his long-time club, his club from the age of five, where he enjoyed so many significant occasions – such as the league cup triumph over their London rivals in 2023‑24 when he came on as an extra-time substitute.
Quansah was also involved in the previous campaign's domestic championship success. Yet his perspective of most of that achievement was not the one he would have preferred. He was an unused substitute on 25 occasions in the competition, his limited playing time comparing unfavourably with his statistics from the prior season when he started nine games.
"I've always learned off top-level professionals around me at Liverpool and it's been so good for my career," he says. "But as a young centre-back, you need games and I'm going to be needing extensive playing time to be where I want to be.
"My primary desire was game time and when you are at a top-level club, it's not promised because there are elite performers throughout the squad. I wanted somewhere where they can trust that I might make mistakes at certain moments but they will look under that and recognize I can continue developing and improving."
Quansah recalls his temporary transfer to League One Bristol Rovers in the second-half of 2022-23 where he made his first senior appearances – multiple matches, to be exact. There were "numerous wake-up calls", he says with a smile, beginning with his first game; a 5-1 defeat at Morecambe.
"That was a genuine revelation," Quansah says. "It proved a really valuable part of my career because I wanted to make the subsequent progression to regular senior competition. Each match I gained fresh insights. That's where I understood how valuable practical knowledge and match practice was. You could suggest it informed my choice in the off-season."
