In our “Green Space” column, Oliver Fritsch, Christof Siemes, Stephan Reich and Christian Spiller take turns writing about the world of football and the world of football. This article is part of ZEIT am Wochenend, issue 44/2025.
There is a lot to think about at the moment at the club I love, Borussia from Mönchengladbach. Even after their first home game win in seven months, they are still bottom of the table, the goal guarantor is still injured and the coach is only in office until further notice. But what is really bitter in this autumn of discontent is something that is happening 60 kilometers southeast of Borussia Park. Around the Geißbockheim, the clubhouse of the unloved arch-rival 1. FC Köln, a 1.90 meter tall stunner is making everyone crazy: Saïd El Mala, 19 years old. He has only played 317 minutes in the Bundesliga so far, but after three goals and some spectacular dribbling on the left wing, his market value has already shot up to 18 million euros. The annoying thing for the Gladbachers: The young man, who has just been awarded the Fritz Walter Silver Medal for the second-best German young footballer, was once one of us, a Borussian.
At 14, Saïd and his brother Malek, who was one year older, were not considered talented enough and had to leave the foaling stable. Could anyone have known better? Then Saïd would fix Gladbach’s lull in the storm today.
After their expulsion from the Gladbach paradise, the brothers played together in the lowlands of the Lower Rhine League; They cleaned clinics at clubs in the West and tried to attract attention through the Munich Skillers.Academy, “one of the biggest German soccer brands of Generation Z,” before finding their way to FC via Viktoria Köln. And now at least the younger El Mala is ascending towards the football Olympus as quickly as a balloon filled with helium. Cologne coach Lukas Kwasniok is desperately clinging to his cord to give the whiz kid some traction.
The climb of Lennart Karl, 17 years old, is even faster a few hundred kilometers further south. He has only played 137 minutes in the first division so far, but he is already considered the Messi from Frammersbach, a community of 4,000 souls in the Spessart. He also won a Fritz Walter Medal, and with his 1-0 win against Bruges, the FC Bayern super talent became the youngest German goalscorer in the world Champions League. And, boom, its market value is now estimated at 20 million euros.
On Wednesday there was a showdown between the prodigies in the DFB Cup, although they didn’t meet directly: El Mala played from the start and was substituted after 65 minutes, Karl was only substituted on ten minutes later. Neither made a lasting impression: El Mala hung out extensively with Bayern defender Dayot Upamecano on the left wing; He couldn’t get past him. His greatest moment came when he took a corner, which he immediately used to whip up the Cologne curve with flailing arms – that’s how you become a popular footballer. Of Karl’s 15 minutes on the pitch, what remains most memorable is a major bad pass in the last minute.
The new favorites of the gods turned out to be completely normal talents who are trying to assert themselves in the adult world, nothing more and nothing less. Nevertheless, the acceleration of the hype carousel on which the young players sit is becoming increasingly crazy. The market is hungry for new faces and stories, money no longer plays a role – at least in England – and the older the generation of superstars around Ronaldo, Messi and Modrić gets, the more unfounded the bets on who will one day be able to follow in their footsteps become. Talents become objects of speculation; Quickly edited videos of their few exploits go viral and fuel the frantic ride. The fact that most of the wonderwuzzis fly off the carousel before they are even fully grown is often mentioned, but it has no influence on what happens.
Does anyone remember Youssoufa Moukoko? He is still the youngest player of all time in the Bundesliga and Champions League, but now, still not older than 20, he has already been through a veritable rollercoaster ride, once from a market value of 10 to 30 million euros and back. His early fame was followed by bitter apprenticeships in Dortmund and Nice; Now he is trying to get back on his feet in tranquil Denmark.
Or Noah Darvich, one of the 2023 U17 World and European Champions, also a winner of a Fritz Walter Silver Medal. At 16, he was promoted to the SC Freiburg second team, and without even playing a game there, he moved to FC Barcelona for 2.5 million euros. The release clause in his three-year contract included an insane transfer fee of one billion euros. Christian Streich, who was still the head coach in Freiburg at the time, tried in vain to persuade the 16-year-old to stay, as he said on the sidelines of his interview with ZEIT a few days ago. Barcelona was simply Darvich’s favorite club; Money didn’t play the decisive role. At his dream club, Darvich was once allowed to sit on the bench under Hansi Flick in the Primera División; He has since moved to VfB Stuttgart’s second team. Transfer fee: one million euros. His old supporter Streich doesn’t believe that this is the last word. He definitely believes he can become a Bundesliga player. Because Darvich is “a real kicker”.
Whether Saïd El Mala is also a “real kicker” could become clear next Saturday. Then he returns to Borussiapark, where he was once shown the door.
Does he intend to settle an old score in the always toxic Rhine derby? If so, I hope he fails this time. Otherwise, I wish him and all his young companions all the best on the crazy carousel of child prodigies.
