Moukoko (Dortmund), child prodigy at the gates of the Bundesliga

Spain has Ansu Fati. On the other side of the Rhine, the eagerly awaited young nugget is called Youssoufa Moukoko. Saturday (at 8:30 p.m.), at the age of 16 years and 1 day, the Dortmund striker could celebrate his first Bundesliga debut at the reception of Hertha Berlin. Phenomenal, this boy who also has a Cameroonian passport is not only by his talent, but also by his precocity.

Engaged at 12 in the U17 championship, he scored 90 goals in 56 matches. At 14, he was outclassed in U19: 47 goals in 25 matches. These extraterrestrial statistics earned him, this year in September, two first selections for the U20 national team, at the age of 15! “He has a talent that you don’t meet every day“, breaths, stunned, the coach of the German team Joachim Löw, who is already questioned about his plans for this new” Wunderkind “.

If Youssoufa Moukoko has not yet made his Bundesliga debut, it is because the regulations prevent a player from fielding before his 16th birthday. The ban falls on Friday because the native of Yaoundé blows out his 16 candles. Dortmund coach Lucien Favre can now make him start in the league, or why not in the Champions League on Tuesday against Bruges. Two precocity records to beat.

“Youssoufa must now take the plunge, the U19 category is too easy for him“, believes the Turkish international Nuri Sahin, 32, who holds the record for precocity in the Bundesliga, with 16 years and 335 days, already in the Dortmund jersey. In C1, the record has belonged since November 1995 to Nigerian Celestine Babayaro, who played his first meeting of the queen competition with Anderlecht when he was 16 years and 87 days old.

For a few months, Moukoko has been training with the professional group of Dortmund, but plays on weekends in U19. He has just scored 10 goals in three matches, before the interruption of the championship due to Covid-19! During the derby against Schalke 04 in October, opposing pseudo-supporters could not stand him scoring a hat-trick, and showered him with racist abuse.

His reaction showed a certain maturity. “I am proud to be born with this skin color and will always be proud of it #BlackLivesMatter, he replied on his Instagram account, “God made us all beautiful, we are all special… You can hate me and swear at me, but you can never take me down“. Faced with the media boom, Borussia, which knows a thing or two about the management of gifted young people, strives to protect its nugget as much as possible. All media interview requests are refused, and the leaders repeat in a loop that he should not have any pressure.

“Youssoufa has a lot of talent, but his path has only just begun, insists Sebastian Kehl, the manager of the pro team. The march towards the professionals is high. It’s a process, you have to give it the necessary calm and timeThe teenager was recruited at 12, while playing at FC St Pauli in Hamburg, where his father, German, had brought him from Cameroon. Three years later, he already has a contract in his pocket. in gold signed at 14 with Nike, has some 750,000 subscribers to his Instagram account, and seems unmoved by the commotion that is starting to surround him.

“He has his feet on the ground“, confirms the sporting director of BVB Michael Zorc. To the point that he was appointed captain of the U19, although he is two or three years younger than his teammates. In the first team, he will find boys of his generation or almost: Giovanni Reyna and Jude Bellingham are 17 years old, Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland just 20. Dortmund’s nursery has always flourished, but probably never one of its young shoots has carried so much promise as Youssoufa Moukoko .