In collaboration with Goal, Voetbalzone regularly highlights young players who can go far in the future or who are already earning their spurs in (inter)national top football. This time, the focus is on 19-year-old central defender Piero Hincapié, who shone in the Ecuadorian shirt during the Copa América last summer. Bayer Leverkusen trumped the necessary competition in the summer by paying six million euros to Club Atlético Talleres and signing the mandekker until the summer of 2026.
When Bayern Munich defeated Bayer Leverkusen 5-1 in a match between the then shared Bundesliga leaders on October 17, this was seen as yet another example of how big the gap is between of the Rekordmeister and the rest at the national level. What was largely ignored, however, was how clever it was for Bayer Leverkusen to keep pace with Bayern in the early weeks of the new season. Especially the defense of coach Gerardo Seoane’s team looked very solid until that big defeat in the Allianz Arena.
Because the brothers Sven and Lars Bender ended their football careers and the defensive leader Aleksandar Dragovic left for Red Star Belgrade, there were holes in the defense last summer that sporting director Simon Rolfes had to close. Edmond Tapsoba’s ruptured ankle ligament gave Seoane even more headaches. The talent from Burkina Faso made his big breakthrough at Bayer Leverkusen in 2020 as a center defender. Did this make Bayer’s defense the Achilles heel of the team? Absolutely not. That Work Self went into the game against Bayern with just six goals conceded in the first six Bundesliga games.
If Bayer Leverkusen hadn’t taken on coach Julian Nagelsmann’s side without one of his new talents, it might have offered more resistance. Hincapié was forced to miss the game in Bavaria, because he had only returned to Germany late due to international obligations with Ecuador. Given the big impression the stopper has made since arriving at the BayArena last summer, he would no doubt have brought more stability to the defence. Leverkusen only lost once this season when Hincapié was on the field, winning six of the nine games he played in. The central defender made the switch from Argentine Club Atlético Talleres in August for approximately six million euros.
Some will say it was too much for the 19-year-old defender to keep Robert Lewandowski, Serge Gnabry and Thomas Müller from scoring, but Hincapié has already shown throughout his career that he has the ability to take on the best attackers in the world. The teenager was part of Ecuador’s final selection for the Copa América, without an international match to his name. He was immediately in the starting line-up for the opening game against Colombia. Hincapié played every minute on the way to the quarterfinals. Against Lionel Messi, Roberto Firmino and Vinicius Junior, the central defender showed himself with some impressive performances.
piero #Hincapie enfocando en la @EuropaLeague!????#B04Betis I #SomosBayer04 pic.twitter.com/i8vwsOQzZP
— Bayer 04 Leverkusen (@bayer04_es) Nov 4, 2021
“We’ve been watching him for a long time,” Rolfes said on Bayer Leverkusen’s website when Hincapié’s move to the BayArena was announced. “His very good performances against absolutely world-class players at the Copa América confirmed our assessment that Piero has a promising future.” Hincapié began his football education at local clubs CS Norte América and Deportivo Azogues, before being picked up by Independiente del Valle at the age of fourteen. Here he came to play in the best youth academy of Ecuadorian football.
Hincapié stood out as a quintessential modern central defender, with his ability with the ball at his feet being one of his forte. This was also evident in the Copa América, where he delivered the most forward passes of any defender in the group stage (89) and showed extreme calm when in possession. At six feet, the youngster has to work harder than other center backs to win aerial duels, but he manages to compensate a lot with his physical strength.
Hincapié made his professional debut for Independiente in August 2019, having led Ecuador Under 17 to fourth place in the South American Championship earlier that year as captain. However, he would only make two more appearances for his former club, before being picked up by Club Atlético Talleres in the summer of 2020. “He is the most talented defender in South America”, was the verdict of Talleres president Andrés Fassi when Hincapié arrived.
Given that stature, it may have come as no surprise that the centre-back appeared on the radars of several top European clubs a year later. Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Atlético Madrid have all been linked to Hincapié. However, it was Leverkusen that became concrete, committing him until mid-2026. The Ecuadorian has not only impressed defensively. He has also proven his ability to contribute offensively, having scored his first professional goal of his career against Celtic (0-4 win) in the Europa League.
“He stayed very calm, made the right choices in the field and won a lot of duels. The goal was the icing on the cake, because that is of course not his main task,” said Seoane enthusiastically after the Europa League match. Leverkusen can be a stepping stone for Hincapié to become a real well-known name in the future. “I would like to play in Spain,” he said in an interview he gave when he was still playing in South America. “Until then, I have to go to smaller clubs to work my way to the top.”
It can be assumed that Leverkusen is one of those smaller clubs. The Bundesliga club is in any case less popular than Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern. But if Hincapié can maintain the form he has shown in his early months at the club, he could still help Leverkusen challenge the European superpowers.