Brighton sign Polish international midfielder Kacper Kozlowski for £8 million
Brighton have completed their first piece of business of the January transfer window, signing 18-year-old Polish international midfielder Kacper Kozlowski for a fee of £8 million from Pogon Szczecin.
Kozlowski has signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with the Albion and will be loaned straight to Royale Union St-Gilloise for the remainder of the 2021-22 season.
There he will join fellow Brighton loanee Kaoru Mitoma as Tony Bloom’s Belgian club look to complete a fairy tale rise by winning the top flight in their first campaign following promotion.
Union are currently seven points clear at the top, although to be crowned champions they will have to navigate an end-of-season playoff system that is too complicated to try and explain so early on a Wednesday morning.
Kozlowski is viewed as one of the hottest young properties in European football who was interesting Manchester United and Liverpool. Bayer Leverkusen, AC Milan, Red Bull Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg were just some of the European clubs also keeping an eye on him.
Jurgen Klopp had been prepared to launch a £10 million bid for his services but Brighton have pipped the Reds, helped by Graham Potter’s willingness to give young players opportunities and the presence of Jakub Moder, an international teammate of Kacper Kozlowski.
Both Moder and Kozlowski went to Euro 2020 (in 2021) with Poland, where Kozlowski made history as the youngest ever player to play in a European Championship aged 17 years and 246 days.
He came off the bench in a 1-1 draw with Spain, breaking the previous record which had been set by England’s Jude Bellingham six days earlier.
Kozlowski forced his way into the Poland squad for the tournament off the back of a breakthrough 2020-21 season at Pogon.
He made 20 appearances mainly as a central midfielder and scored once, helping his boyhood club to third place in the Polish top flight, their highest finish for 20 years.
Pogon have long had Kozlowski marked down as one to watch. He made his debut aged only 15 years and 215 days on the final day of the 2018-19 campaign, coming off the bench in a 3-0 win over Cracovia.
He made three further appearances in the 2019-20 season. 19 matches for Pogon in 2021-22 have yielded three goals and four assists, meaning that he leaves the Florian Krygier Municipal Stadium with a career record of 43 games, four goals and seven assists.
Whilst he has spent most of his career as an orthodox central midfielder, Kozlowski has also been used as an attacking midfielder and a false nine.
The closest match to him currently at the Albion is probably Alexis Mac Allister, even though Mac Allister operates best as a number 10 floating behind the front men as Everton found out when he scored twice as Brighton won 3-2 at Goodison Park at the weekend.
There is much to be excited about by the capture of Kozlowski, but Albion fans should remember there is a long way to go for him to establish himself as a Premier League regular.
Just ask Michal Karbownik. He too was a Polish international who was on the wanted list of some of Europe’s biggest clubs when Brighton brought him to England for £4.5 million from Legia Warsaw last January.
One FA Cup and one League Cup appearance later and he was loaned to Olympiacos, who are believed to have a right-to-buy clause come the end of the season.
For an £8 million outlay, Brighton will be hoping that Kozlowski proves to be more of a success than Karbownik.
If Kozlowski does live up to expectations, then the prospect of him and the equally highly-rated Moises Caicedo forming a midfield partnership for the Albion in the years to come looks a tantalising one.
