Cologne will feel justice has been served when the Premier League clubs take on their homegrown superstar for the second year in a row.
“Die Billy Goats” have the Bundesliga’s biggest breakthrough star this season in Said El Mala, who will make up for Florian Wirtz’s injustice.
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Köln, also known as FC Köln, were unhappy when Wirtz joined Liverpool in a then British transfer record deal worth £116.5m in June.
The 22-year-old was previously promoted at their academy Bayer Leverkusen decided to sign him five years ago for a paltry £265,000.
Cologne assumes that the Rhenish rival has broken a “gentleman’s agreement” with its respective youth stars by poaching Wirtz.
It proved a particularly difficult pill to swallow when Germany’s current player of the year was later sold for more than 400 times his original value.
However, Cologne could now make a massive gain from Wirtz’s compatriot El Mala, who has taken the Bundesliga by storm this year.
Who is Said El Mala?
The club signed the teenager and his older brother Malek from city rivals Viktoria Köln in 2024, but due to a transfer ban the two were loaned out again to the German third division club last season.
After scoring 13 goals and providing five assists for Viktoria, El Mala arrived in Cologne this summer to sign a contract until 2030.
The 19-year-old made the jump to the second division without any problems and scored a last-minute equalizer in the 1-1 draw against Werder Bremen on Saturday.
This means that the 1.80 meter tall winger has already scored five goals and provided three more assists in just 501 minutes in twelve Bundesliga games.
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European football expert Andy Brassell told The Pitch Prospect.com: “There’s no doubt who the star of the team is. And it’s El Mala.”
“Someone who is relatively young, who has relatively little experience in the first team, but someone who dares to dribble.
“He’s fast, the ball sticks to his feet. He constantly wants to compete against players. That’s why he was called up to the German squad so quickly.”
“He’s a pretty authentic winger who you’re probably seeing less and less of, which is why it’s so exciting to see him, because there’s something very reassuringly old-fashioned about him.”
“His balance and technique are really great.
“He was called up for Germany for the first time in November, and [Julian] Nagelsmann clearly has a plan for him as he had him in the squad for the first game, but for the second game he let him go back to the U21s to help out.
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El Mala is “one in a million”
Nagelsmann’s decision to include El Mala in the German squad last month was met with criticism from Oliver Kahn and Didi Hamann.
The latter claimed that the call-up was too early, but after the youth’s exploits on Sunday he sang a different song.
Brassell added: “El Mala must be promoted and protected in equal measure.” Didi Hamann said on Sky Deutschland that he thought people were getting too excited about El Mala too quickly.
He said it was way too early. There is too much hype.
“Now, a few performances later, he thinks: He’s great. He’s special.”
He’s one in a million. So he is one of those players.
“It’s so easy for him to win people over because he’s such a natural talent, because he has so much confidence.”
“You can see how he strikes in the crucial moments. Cologne were facing their third Bundesliga defeat in a row at Werder Bremen at the weekend, and he single-handedly brought them back into the game in the final phase.”
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El Mala transfer
“El Mala is the one who makes Cologne think: ‘Okay, this is a guy who is going to be huge,’” Brassell added to The Pitch Prospect. “And at least for now, he’s ours.”
“A lot of Cologne fans look at Florian Wirtz and think he should have been our superstar and are still pretty upset about that, especially about how brilliant and what an important player Wirtz has become.”
“But I think a lot of them look at El Mala and think that could be our guy, the homegrown superstar, so to speak, that Wirtz should be.”
But for how long?
Southampton and Brighton were both linked with El Mala last summer, but interest in his services has increased significantly since then.
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Bayern Munich sporting director Christoph Freund has approached him, while Pep Guardiola is reportedly a big fan in Germany.
According to reports in Spain, Manchester United are also admirers of El Mala, with Liverpool and Chelsea among his other potential suitors.
“I always tend to think that it would be better if the players stayed here for a year,” Brassell continued. “But when you’re offered a big step, there’s usually only one answer.”
“Given the confidence that El Mala has, the way he handles every level and looks like he’s ready for it, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he left at the end of the season. That would be a huge shame for FC Köln and their fans.”
“If he continues to play the way he is doing, some offers will come up that they can’t refuse and then the inevitable will happen.”
“But I think that will be different to Wirtz, who was taken away before he even had the chance to get into the Cologne first team.”
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“I think if you ask most Cologne fans intellectually, they know how good Said El Mala is.
“You know he’s going to play for an elite team at some point. And that’s OK. That’s a fulfillment of his talent.”
“But it’s just about enjoying it now. And Cologne’s football culture is tirelessly optimistic, it’s tirelessly concerned with the here and now, with this game. And we won this game, so we’re making progress. And I think he’s taking advantage of that somehow.”
“Someone who just gives you instant thrills. So he feels like not only a great player of the future, but a player of his kind. And I think they’ll just enjoy him as long as they have him.”
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Man United is the “most sensible” option
“You don’t really look at Manchester United and say it’s a great place to develop a young player. But if you look at where he would logically fit, I think United are the most sensible of them all.”
“Liverpool are obviously going through a period of change at the moment and you wonder how much football he would actually play there.”
“[Man] City have absolutely convincing wingers at the moment.
So one wonders how often he would play there.
“United is perhaps the most obvious.
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“If you look at the recent successes, United, you really see someone like Amad.” [Diallo]and he’s someone who feels pretty old-fashioned.
“A player who, despite the pressure, despite the situation, despite this kind of heaviness that United seem to feel all the time, is not afraid to step up.”
“He still wants to be on the ball and make something happen. You can definitely imagine El Mala from the other side too.”