Dortmund Invest Up To $14 Million In Potential Star

Another talented attacking player has joined Borussia Dortmund. The Bundesliga club announced on Friday that it had signed talented Belgium winger Julien Duranville for €8.5 million ($9.25 million) from Belgian club RSC Anderlecht. Transfermarkt reported that the price could grow to around €11-13 million ($12-14 million) thanks to performance-based add-ons.

Borussia Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl was pleased that in Duranville the club has landed one of the most promising attacking players of his age group. “Julien is a fast, technically strong and creative winger in whom we see great potential,” Kehl said in a club statement. “In the coming years, we would like to work together to leverage this potential and drive forward his development – as we have already demonstrated with talented youngsters on several occasions in the past.”

The Dortmund boss, however, also added that the club will give Duranville time to be integrated in the first team. “Our main focus will now be on integrating Julien into our first-team squad and his new surroundings as quickly as possible and bringing him up to Bundesliga level step-by-step,” Kehl said.

As the likes of Jadon Sancho, Jude Bellingham, Youssoufa Moukoko, Giovanni Reyna, and Jamie Bynoe-Gittens highlighted, the jump to the first team could be achieved relatively quickly at Dortmund. At the same time, Dortmund fans will have to show a bit of patience as the winger arrives with a muscle injury that will keep him out for the foreseeable future.

Once fit, Duranville promises to be a fantastic addition. The 16-year-old has already scored one goal in ten competitive first-team games for Anderlecht this season. The native of Uccle, Belgium, has also appeared in four games for RCSA Future in the Challenge Pro League, where he added another goal.

But what can Dortmund fans expect from the talented winger? A quick glance at Wyscout highlights that Duranville is a tricky winger, averaging 9.76 dribbles per 90 minutes, of which he has won 61.4% this season.

Although Duranville’s sample size is obviously still small, the Belgian winger has a similar dribble rate as fellow right-winger Bynoe-Gittens while winning a higher percentage of one-v-one situations—the Englishman has completed 44.83% of his dribbles this season. One category that Duranville, however, has to work on is his presence in the box, where he is behind fellow right-wingers Karim Adeyemi (3.67 per 90) and Bynoe-Gittens (5.31 per 90) with 1.75 touches inside the box per 90 minutes.

It will be interesting to see how those numbers will translate once Duranville makes his Bundesliga debut. The list of players that have joined Dortmund at a young age for a sizeable fee and then left for an even bigger fee is long. But there also have been players like Emre Mor or Alexander Isak that have struggled to pay off the investment made in them.

Duranville could easily fall into either category. The 16-year-old winger is a project and starts his Dortmund career with an injury. But the potential upside should Duranville work out is enormous for the Black and Yellows, as he was already heavily scouted by Premier League teams before opting to join Dortmund instead.

Manuel Veth is the host of the Bundesliga Gegenpressing Podcast and the Area Manager USA at Transfermarkt. He has also been published in the Guardian, Newsweek, Howler, Pro Soccer USA, and several other outlets. Follow him on Twitter: @ManuelVeth