{"id":5780,"date":"2026-05-08T08:51:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5780"},"modified":"2026-05-08T08:51:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:51:01","slug":"karim-coulibaly-why-chelsea-man-utd-psg-are-all-watching-werder-bremens-e50m-rated-teenage-sensation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=5780","title":{"rendered":"Karim Coulibaly: Why Chelsea, Man Utd &#038; PSG are all watching Werder Bremen&#8217;s \u20ac50m-rated teenage sensation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\" data-affiliate-button-variant=\"A\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Coulibaly certainly seems to have the potential to become an elite modern centre-back. We&#8217;ve touched on his composure, and that makes him very comfortable playing out from the back, either going short or scanning the pitch to pick out a team-mate with a raking, long, left-footed pass. If an option doesn&#8217;t present itself, he will back himself to carry it forward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>His rangy 6&#8217;3&#8243; frame means he is able to dominate in aerial duels, and he boasts a pretty good record on the ground, too; he&#8217;s won an impressive 173 tackles in the Bundesliga so far this season, using his long legs to give him extra extension when he slides in. Coulibaly&#8217;s positional sense means he has often been in the right place to make a big block, too. He&#8217;s no slouch either, despite his height, clocking a top speed of 33km\/h in 2025-26.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;We have great confidence in Karim,&#8221; ex-Werder boss Steffen said before the youngster&#8217;s full debut. &#8220;He is good in one-on-one situations and has a decent height. His build-up play is also outstanding. He is already very composed for his young age. He didn\u2019t let himself get stressed during pre-season and always found solutions.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Although he has only played at centre-back this season, Coulibaly is also versatile enough to step into midfield if required, with his skillset lending itself equally well to the No.6 position.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coulibaly certainly seems to have the potential to become an elite modern centre-back. We&#8217;ve touched&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}