Reports linking Rangers with a potential £2 million summer swoop for one of the most coveted young defenders in Eastern Europe appear to have come as no real surprise to the centre-half’s current employers.
Interest, after all, is to be expected when a player of such talent and potential is out of contract in just over a year’s time, and has a £2 million release clause which is due to kick in over the coming months.
Rangers certainly won’t have a free run at him.
HITC Football understands that Fulham, Burnley, Wolves and Leicester City have also sent scouts to watch Leopold Querfeld in action for Austrian outfit Rapid Vienna this season. As have Rangers’ Old Firm neighbours Celtic.
Rangers in race for Leo Querfeld
“I expect a lot of interest from foreign clubs,” Rapid’s sporting director Markus Katzer tells Kurier, his predictions already feeling particularly prescient as Oliver Glasner – the Austrian head coach now at Crystal Palace – also runs his rule over the talented, mop-haired defender and his midfielder team-mate Matthias Seidl.
It is not so much a case of ‘if’ Querfeld leaves this summer, but ‘when’. And ‘where’ he ends up next.
As Austrian reporter Peter Linden writes in his blog, the 20-year-old has been ‘the most stable and the best’ defender in the Rapid Vienna squad this season.
“After this season, Querfeld can get out of the contract if a foreign club pays a transfer fee of 2.5 million euros for him,” Linden adds.
Gers can land £2 million bargain
Considering that the long-serving Connor Goldson is not getting any younger – and with mistakes creeping into the 31-year-old’s game – Rangers may consider Querfeld a £2 million opportunity to good to miss out on.
Rapid Vienna, it seems, feel the same about another young Austrian. An 18-year-old who could yet replace Querfeld at Rapid, should Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen opt to cash in on a player who captains their side at under-19 level.
“(Filip) Milojevic is a very interesting player,” Katzer adds. “And a great defensive talent.”
Milojevic will become a free-agent in July. And his Bayer Leverkusen departure could knock down the first domino in Rangers’ pursuit of a defender capable of stepping into Goldson’s Ibrox footwear.
