Kapo – Touch of Quality

Olivier Kapo, 27, has joined a different club in England, switching from Birmingham City to Wigan. Wigan manager Steve Bruce, who will be Kapo’s manager for a second time, said Kapo has a touch of quality about him.

We’d seen some of that quality when Kapo had chances to play for France (he has 9 caps), but his move to Juventus was a disaster. He couldn’t win a spot in the first team, and he hasn’t been called up for Les Bleus since his transfer to Juve in 2004.

Since escaping from Juventus, he hasn’t gotten his career back to the level it was with Auxerre, where he was a rising star. He said that Wigan is a team that is going somewhere, which I take to mean that he thinks they can avoid relegation this year.

I was really disappointed that his transfer to Juventus didn’t work out, because I thought he looked like a promising player for France.

I need help with perspective on Kapo: did he have a sudden decline? Was he just on the cusp of becoming a top player and got knocked off stride – a case of unfulfilled potential? Did L’Equipe de France, Juventus, and I project quality onto the player; quality that we wanted to see that wasn’t actually there?

Or, OR!: is he poised for a comeback and one to watch for 2010?