Film Study: Piero Hincapié

Everything you should know about the linked Ecuadorian defender

If you’re one of the many who weren’t paying attention Monday, like me, the thunderbolt of a transfer report that Arsenal had a serious interest in Bayer Leverkusen defender Piero Hincapié may have caught you completely flat-footed.

I mean, sure, Hincapié is a player I’ve liked for a long time.

And the newly-minted ADAM system has even friggin’ identified him in the “rewriting the past” transfer series, which is just too funny.

But particularly with Calafiori and Lewis-Skelly and Kiwior around, I wasn’t necessarily expecting that big left-sided defender move to happen this summer. And yet, here we are! So what’s this guy’s deal? Well…

Hincapié is 23 (24 in January), and hails from Ecuador. He joined Independiente del Valle, the same club that has produced guys like Moisés Caicedo, Kendry Páez and Willian Pacho in recent years. He helped his club’s youth team win the U20 Copa Libertadores before making three senior appearances for Independiente, but opted to leave shortly after for Argentina’s Club Atlético Talleres for about €850,000.

After just a year at Talleres and 14 total senior appearances, Hincapié made the move to Leverkusen in a €6.4 million transfer at just 19 years old and was almost immediately integrated into Gerardo Seoane’s starting XI. To say the move has worked out for Leverkusen is a massive understatement — Hincapié has made 92 league starts over five seasons, including a league title campaign, as well as 40 appearances between the Europa and Champions leagues.

His role has certainly shifted over time. At Talleres (and for Ecuador’s NT that season), he was almost exclusively deployed as a left-sided centre-back in a back four. But Leverkusen switched things up pretty much immediately, starting him at left-back in his second start after joining the club and moving him between left-back in a back four and left centre-back in a back three for the rest of the season.

That back three is really where he’s done most of his work for Leverkusen, particularly under Xabi Alonso, which comes with (in my mind) some costs and some benefits. We’ll get into that below.