A strong header, dangerous goals and explosive: VfB newcomer Alou Kuol has great potential. But the 19-year-old can not only cause a sensation on the pitch. What makes him stand out?
Alou Kuol had only been on the field for a few minutes. Nevertheless, the 19-year-old immediately showed how much potential he has. Well in front of the opponent’s penalty area, Kuol got the ball, turned it up, went past the first opponent, with a body twist on the second. The 1.80-meter-tall striker shook off his pursuers energetically and quickly, letting opponent number four run dry just before the penalty area. Only the goalkeeper’s foot defense could stop Kuol.
An explosive striker
Even if the striker didn’t reward himself with a goal: This scene from the 23rd matchday of the Australian A-League at the end of May shows why VfB Stuttgart signed Alou Kuol from the Australian first division club Central Coast Mariners.
What kind of guy is Kuol? How much potential does it have? SWR Sport spoke to Peter Prior, host of the Mariners fan podcast “Coast Football Ramble”. Prior describes Kuol as a “physically strong player”, as a striker “with high intensity and energy”.
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“He’s very strong in the air. He loves to play the last defender and get through the back of the defense with his speed. But he’s also good at one-on-one and a natural enforcer who knows how to hit the goal. The people in Stuttgart can look forward to that, “says Prior, raving about Alou Kuol.
Fled from the war
In the 20/21 season, Kuol scored seven goals in 26 games and prepared two more. It was Kuol’s first full season with the pros, with the striker mostly coming on.
“He’s so confident, he’s such a personality.”
Despite his young age, the 19-year-old has already seen a lot. At the age of three, Kuol and his family fled the war from their native country, Sudan. First to Egypt, then to Australia, where the family felt at home.
There he often played football with his six brothers in the garden. The Australian with Sudanese roots later gained a foothold in youth football and worked as a kitchen helper.
With the Mariners, Kuol enjoys hero status
At the Gouldburn Valley Suns, Alou Kuol threw himself in a semi-professional league as a teenager in tackles against players who were almost twice their age. With success: at the age of 18, Kuol won the golden shoe for the best goalscorer. Suddenly he dreamed of a professional career.
But soon the disappointments came: Kuol made several professional trainings – unsuccessful. Then Kuol left his new home and in 2019 moved from Shepparton to the Mariners on the Central Coast, near Sydney. In the junior team, Kuol attracted attention from the start. Already in the second half of the 19/20 season he became a professional first-team player. “He immediately enjoyed hero status with the fans,” recalls Prior. In the first game of the 20/21 season, Kuol scored the winning goal in a local derby.
Kuol, the “gem in the rough”
Even if the Australian league is a physically strong league, tactically and in terms of the pace of play, the Bundesliga is on a different level. The 19-year-old Kuol and newcomer Ömer Beyaz still have to get used to that. Kuol is therefore to be introduced to the Bundesliga in the transition area from the U21s and the professionals at VfB Stuttgart. In any case, its potential is huge, says Prior.
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“I don’t think he knows how good he can be. There is so much potential and I think Stuttgart is the ideal place to move forward with his development,” says Prior, emphasizing: “Kuol still has a few steps in development in front of him, he’s still very unfinished, a gem in the rough. There are things in his game that he still needs to work on. Of course it’s a huge step from the Australian league to the Bundesliga, but I think he’ll grow into it . ”
Kuol not only convinced VfB with his talent
At VfB Stuttgart, Kuol not only scored points because of his potential, but also because of his life story and the resulting personality. “Alou Kuol drew attention to himself as one of the top rookies in the Australian A-League and impressed us with his personality and ambition in personal conversations,” says Sven Mislintat of Kuol.
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From the Central Coast to the Neckar: With Alou Kuol, a personality with an eventful life story changes to VfB Stuttgart.
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How the 19-year-old ticks off the pitch was shown on Australian television when he gave an interview for the Mariners after his starting XI debut. His goal for the next games is “to shoot one in the top corner,” said Kuol confidently and with an attraction that you rarely get from footballers. Off the pitch, he also wants to have fun and show people his personality, Kuol told Spox, adding: “I’m not boring. I say what I think.”
What role can Kuol play at VfB?
In the long term, he believes that Kuol will be a strong striker in the Bundesliga, says Prior. In the short term, he sees Kuol more as a project. “But at the Mariners, I didn’t think he’d develop that quickly either – and he did. Anything is possible,” adds Prior.
VfB will start preparing for the season on July 2nd. Then it will show whether Alou Kuol can also cause a sensation in Stuttgart – not only in interviews off the pitch, but also on the pitch, as with the Mariners: with explosiveness and the risk of goals.
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