On 1 September 2026, in the same afternoon, Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Real Racing Club announced the loan of French defender Jeanuël Belocian to Santander until 30 June 2027. Barely ten months, no declared option, no figure. The two statements diverge on one thing only: how tall the player is. Weight and position are declared by Racing alone, because the German statement does not write them: they sit on the Leverkusen player page.
The profile at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Player | Jeanuël Belocian |
| Born | 17 February 2005 in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe (21) |
| Position | Centre-back for Racing, full-back who can move inside for Leverkusen |
| Foot | Left, Leverkusen statement of June 2024 |
| Declared height | 1.82 m, 1.86 m or 1.88 m depending on the document |
| Parent club | Bayer 04 Leverkusen, contract until 30 June 2029 |
| Structure | Loan to Real Racing Club until 30 June 2027 |
| Division | LaLiga EA Sports, the Spanish top flight |
| Shirt number | 24 in Santander, 44 at Leverkusen |
| Career goals | None, in 89 official matches according to public archives |
Two statements, the same afternoon, and the date is nailed down
The Racing page does not show a date readable at a glance, its news feed does: Belocian comes out at 16:00 UTC on 1 September 2026, 18:00 in Spain, and the sequence reaches 23:15 local time with the loan of André Almeida from Valencia, the sale of Gustavo Puerta to Olympiakos and the permanent signing of Pablo García from Betis, until 30 June 2030.
The Leverkusen statement carries the date in plain sight, 1.09.2026, in German and in English. And on 3 September Racing closes the circle, describing Belocian, Almeida and García as “the signings of the last day of the window”, las incorporaciones del último día de mercado in the Spanish original. The day is not inferred from an aggregator: the two clubs write it.
Racing are no longer in Segunda, and their own site says so
The fixtures module on the Racing site gives LaLiga EA Sports 2026/27: first round at home against Villarreal (2-2), second away at Getafe, lost 1-0, third against Elche (3-2), fourth against Rayo Vallecano on 5 September, but at the Estadio Ontime Butarque in Leganés, because the concession for the Vallecas ground has been provisionally suspended. Four points from three matches. And on that same 1 September, saying goodbye to Puerta, the Cantabrian club distinguishes the Colombian’s 33 matches in LaLiga Hypermotion from the three in Primera.
Leverkusen call them a Spanish top-division side and “the team currently ninth in La Liga”; the official table, on 4 September, has them tenth with four points. The position moves round by round, the division does not. For Belocian it matters: a twenty-one-year-old who has to recover continuity does it in the league of Barcelona and Real Madrid, and that is the sense of Simon Rolfes’s line about playing time he can get “at the highest level”.
Three official heights for the same defender
Here the documents do not add up, and the choice is not ours. Racing writes 1.88 metres and 79 kilos. Leverkusen writes 1.86 metres in both of its documents of 1 September, and 78 kilos on the player page alone: the loan statement does not declare the weight. And on 7 June 2024, buying him from Stade Rennes, that same Leverkusen presented him as “the 1.82 metre tall left-footer”: the figure encyclopaedic entries carry.
Six centimetres between the first document and the last, all published by professional clubs. Between nineteen and twenty-one a boy can still grow, and that is the most generous explanation for the jump from 1.82 to 1.86. It does not explain the two centimetres between Leverkusen and Racing on the same day, on the same player.
There is a twin divergence on position, and there too the documents are not the same ones: “actúa principalmente como defensa central”, mainly a centre-back, in the Racing statement; “the full-back, who can also play in central defensive” on the Leverkusen player page; a centre-back with licence to play in midfield for the public archives. None of the three readings is wrong: they say the position has not been settled yet.
On age, by contrast, everything adds up: nineteen in June 2024 and in January 2025, twenty in February 2026, twenty-one on 1 September for Leverkusen, 21 years on the Racing profile. Five documents in two years, all compatible with 17 February 2005.
From Les Abymes to Metz: a debut at seventeen
Belocian was born in Les Abymes and started playing in Guadeloupe, at AJC and Stade Lamentinois; he arrived in Rennes in 2020, and it is there that the professional career begins, as Racing writes. Racing also tells the story of his debut in the French top flight, against Metz on 20 March 2022, at seventeen years and one month, and describes him as an international from the under-16s to the under-21s. Two and a half months after that debut he is European under-17 champion with France, who beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the final on 1 June 2022: the line-ups published by UEFA have him in the starting eleven, shirt number 17.
The real leap is 2023-24: 23 Ligue 1 appearances, three in the Europa League and one in the Coupe de France, numbers Leverkusen quote in full in the signing statement, with a contract until 2029.
6 January 2025, the right cruciate
On 5 January 2025 Leverkusen win a friendly 2-0 against Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, and the clinical examination at the stadium finds nothing serious. Overnight the knee gets worse, the Monday scan brings certainty, the club announces the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee: season over, after five Bundesliga appearances.
On 2 February 2026 Leverkusen send him on loan to Wolfsburg until June, and Rolfes says it without mincing words: after a long injury he has struggled to find rhythm, what he needs is to play. In that half season the archives credit him with 14 Bundesliga appearances plus two in the relegation play-off.
Twenty-seven in the Bundesliga, thirty-one or thirty-two in Ligue 1
Racing declares 27 Bundesliga appearances, 31 in Ligue 1, 4 in the Champions League and 6 in the Europa League. Public encyclopaedic tables, updated to 25 May 2026, allow the sums to be redone: Bundesliga 13 with Leverkusen plus 14 with Wolfsburg, that is 27; Champions League 2 plus 2; Europa League 3 plus 3. Three numbers out of four match.
The fourth does not. In Ligue 1 the same tables count 1 appearance in 2021-22, 8 in 2022-23 and 23 in 2023-24: 32 in total, against Racing’s 31. The gap is worth exactly the season of the debut, the Metz one. A plausible but undeclared explanation: the encyclopaedic table writes column by column what it counts, the Racing statement does not, and until whoever publishes the 31 says so the number stays double.
What to watch
The first indicator is the position. If José Alberto fields him in the centre he confirms Racing’s reading, if he uses him on the left, the Leverkusen one: either way it becomes clear what he has become after the cruciate.
The second is the knee, and it is the reason this loan exists. The 16 matches in half a season at Wolfsburg, play-off included, say he holds a starter’s load for a few months. Ten months in Primera say whether he holds it for a whole season.
The third is Rolfes’s closing line: on his return, in 2027, Belocian will be “a promising candidate” for the Werkself. A forecast, not a promise. Racing have taken a defender with almost three years of contract ahead of him and a club waiting for him.
Sources: statements and player profile of Real Racing Club (1 and 3 September 2026) for the structure and expiry of the loan, the shirt number, the measurements, the position, the declared appearances, the under-17 title, the phrase about the signings of the last day of the window and Puerta’s matches in Primera; statements and player page of Bayer 04 Leverkusen (7 June 2024, 6 January 2025, 2 February 2026, 1 September 2026) for the transfer, the contract, the foot, the heights, the injury and the words of Rolfes; the Racing site, the Rayo Vallecano statement and the official LaLiga table for the fixture list, the results, the venue of the fourth round and the position on 4 September; official UEFA line-ups for the under-17 final; public encyclopaedic archives for the season by season detail (to 25 May 2026) and for the 35 youth international appearances, 18 at under-17, 6 at under-18, 4 at under-19, 7 at under-21 (to 17 November 2025), which neither club publishes. The loan fee, any option to buy and the career total of minutes played do not appear: Leverkusen publish only the average, 36 per game across the 20 in their shirt. Racing do not declare the foot: among club documents the left-footer appears only in the German statement of June 2024. The piece is dated 1 September: the Racing phrase of the 3rd and the table of the 4th are later references, dated in the text. Quotations from the German statements are given here in the club’s own English version; the Spanish phrases from Racing are reproduced in the original and translated.
Frequently asked questions
What kind of move is Belocian's switch to Racing?
A loan from Bayer 04 Leverkusen to Real Racing Club until 30 June 2027, announced by the two clubs on 1 September 2026. Neither statement mentions an option or an obligation to buy, and neither declares a fee: any figure in circulation should therefore be read as press reconstruction. The player's contract with Leverkusen remains valid until 30 June 2029, as the German club writes.
Which division does Racing de Santander play in for 2026-27?
The top flight. The fixture list published by Racing gives LaLiga EA Sports 2026/27, with Villarreal, Getafe, Elche, Rayo Vallecano, Alavés, Barcelona, Celta and Valencia in the first eight rounds, and Leverkusen in its own statement calls Racing a Spanish top-division side. On that same 1 September the Cantabrian club, saying goodbye to Gustavo Puerta, writes that the Colombian played 33 matches in LaLiga Hypermotion and three in Primera in the green and white shirt.
How tall is Jeanuël Belocian?
There is no single answer, and it is the most interesting point on his profile. Racing writes 1.88 metres and 79 kilos. Leverkusen writes 1.86 metres in both of its documents of 1 September 2026, the loan statement and the player page, but the 78 kilos appear on the page alone: the statement does not declare the weight. Leverkusen itself, when it signed him in June 2024, presented him as "the 1.82 metre tall left-footer", and that is the figure encyclopaedic archives carry, citing Stade Rennais. Three numbers, all on official paper.
How many matches has he played across Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and European competition?
Racing declares 27 Bundesliga appearances, 31 in Ligue 1, 4 in the Champions League and 6 in the Europa League. Public encyclopaedic tables, updated to the matches of 25 May 2026, give exactly the same numbers for the Bundesliga, the Champions League and the Europa League, and one more in Ligue 1: 32. The difference corresponds exactly to the single appearance of the 2021-22 season, the one of his debut. The encyclopaedic table states column by column what it counts; the Racing statement, which publishes the 31, does not.
What injury did he suffer?
A rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, announced by Leverkusen on 6 January 2025. The knee had worsened overnight after the friendly against Rot-Weiß Oberhausen, and the clinical examination carried out at the stadium had given no sign of it: certainty came from the Monday scan. The 2024-25 season ended there, after five Bundesliga appearances.
Why has Leverkusen sent him away if it considers him a candidate for the first team?
Sporting director Simon Rolfes explains it in the statement of 1 September 2026, here in the club's own English version: "Jeanuel has been through the whole pre-season with us; he's performed well and caught our eye. At the moment, however, the competition at Bayer 04 is still too fierce for him. Jeanu needs more playing time, which he can get at the highest level in Santander. When he returns next year, he'll be a promising candidate for our Werkself." Next year, in the statement, means 2027, when the loan ends. The German original reads aussichtsreicher Kandidat where the English says promising candidate.
