Edmond Fayçal Tapsoba (born 2 February 1999) is a Burkinabé professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

club

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen, officially known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH () and commonly known as Bayer Leverkusen or simply Leverkusen, is a German professional football club based in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It competes in the B ...

and the Burkina Faso national team.

Early and personal life

Tapsoba grew up in the Karpala section of

Ouagadougou Ouagadougou or Wagadugu (, , , ) is the capital city of Burkina Faso, and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic centre of the nation. It is also the List of cities in Burkina Faso#Largest cities, country's largest city, wi ...

where he played football in the streets, but he never played organized football until the age of fourteen. As a child, he would often skip school to play football. He is represented by former Portugal international

Deco Anderson Luís de Souza (born 27 August 1977), also known as Deco (), is a Brazilian-born Portuguese former professional footballer who primarily played as an attacking or central midfielder. Born and raised in Brazil, he acquired Portuguese ...

. Tapsoba can speak some English, as well as French. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Tapsoba donated masks, gloves, and hand sanitiser to a market in Ouagadougou.

Club career

Early career

Tapsoba played for Salitas, US Ouagadougou,

Leixões The Port of Leixões (, ) is one of Portugal's major seaports, located 4 km north of the mouth of the Douro River, in Matosinhos municipality, near the city of Porto. Leixões Sport Club, commonly known simply as ''Leixões'', is Matosinh ...

, Vitória de Guimarães B, and Vitória de Guimarães.

Bayer Leverkusen

On 31 January 2020, Tapsoba agreed to a five-and-a-half-year contract with

for a fee of €18 million plus €7 million for objectives. On 21 February 2021, he scored his first

goal for Bayer Leverkusen in the final seconds of stoppage time in a match against

FC Augsburg Fußball-Club Augsburg 1907 e. V., commonly known as FC Augsburg (), is a Football in Germany, German professional football club based in Augsburg, Bavaria. FC Augsburg play in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system. T ...

, equalising for his side and extending Leverkusen's unbeaten streak against Augsburg to twenty matches.

International career

Tapsoba made his international debut for

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. It covers an area of 274,223 km2 (105,87 ...

in 2016. In December 2021, he was selected to represent his country at the

2021 Africa Cup of Nations The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (also referred to as AFCON 2021 or CAN 2021), known as the TotalEnergies 2021 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, was the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's ass ...

in Cameroon. Burkina Faso would reach the semi-finals of the tournament and Tapsoba was named in the best eleven along with teammate Blati Touré. On 20 December 2023, Tapsoba was included in the final 27 man squad for the

2023 Africa Cup of Nations The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, known in short as the 2023 AFCON or CAN 2023 and for sponsor (commercial), sponsorship purposes as the TotalEnergies 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, was the 34th edition of the biennial Africa Cup of Nations tournam ...

Style of play

Tapsoba has been compared to

Jérôme Boateng Jérôme Agyenim Boateng (; born 3 September 1988) is a German professional footballer who plays for Austrian Bundesliga club LASK. Boateng started his career at Hertha BSC where he developed from the youth ranks to the first team. After his deb ...

for his speed, strength, passing ability, and composure. He is also known for his ability to score goals, especially from the penalty spot. He cites players such as

John Stones John Stones (born 28 May 1994) is an English professional Association football, footballer who plays as a centre-back or defensive midfielder for club Manchester City F.C., Manchester City and the England national football team, England nation ...

, Per Mertesacker, and

Virgil van Dijk Virgil van Dijk (; born 8 July 1991) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for and captains both club Liverpool and the Netherlands national team. Widely regarded as one of the best defenders of his generation and ...

as inspirations.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Burkina Faso's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Tapsoba goal.''

Honours

Bayer Leverkusen *

: 2023–24 *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal (), also known as the German Cup in English language, English, is a German knockout Association football, football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competiti ...

: 2023–24 *

DFL-Supercup The Franz Beckenbauer Supercup or ''German Super Cup'' is a one-off association football, football match in Germany that features the winners of the Bundesliga championship and the DFB-Pokal. The competition is run by the Deutsche Fußball Liga (E ...

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

Individual *

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations, commonly abbreviated as AFCON and officially known as the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is the main biennial international men's association football competition in Africa. It is s ...

Team of the Tournament:

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tapsoba, Edmond Living people 1999 births Men's association football central defenders Burkinabe men's footballers Burkina Faso men's international footballers Footballers from Ouagadougou Salitas FC players US Ouagadougou players Leixões S.C. players Vitória S.C. players Bayer 04 Leverkusen players Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Bundesliga players Burkinabe expatriate men's footballers Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Burkinabe expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany 2021 Africa Cup of Nations players 2023 Africa Cup of Nations players 21st-century Burkinabe sportsmen