With all the buzz around young players like Jadon Sancho and Gio Reyna, plus the latest oversaturation of news about Dortmund's Norwegian striker Erling Haaland and his potential next destination, it's perfectly understandable if the exploits of another young player may have gone under the radar.
Except Youssoufa Moukoko isn't exactly the kind of player who really fades into the background. Since bursting onto the scene in at just nine-years-old in 2013, the Cameroonian born German youth international has been making waves. As a ten-year-old with the youth team of 2.Bundesliga side FC St. Pauli, where he scored 23 goals in just 13 matches. Not surprisingly, that led to Borussia Dortmund taking notice, and die Schwarzgelben snapped him up for their youth set-up in 2016.
Moukoko quickly outgrew his age category and was soon playing with the under-17 team, but even that tier wasn't competitive enough, so Dortmund decided to promote him, once again, to the under-19 squad. In his first match, he scored six goals as Dortmund cruised to a 9-2 win over Wuppertaler SV, and a month later in October 2017, at just 14, he scored for die Schwarzgelben against Inter in the UEFA Youth League. To date, he remains the youngest player to have achieved this feat in the competition's history.
In January 2020, Lucien Favre decided to give him an opportunity to train with the senior team, but due to new Bundesliga regulations, Moukoko had to wait until last November, when he turned 16 on the 21st to actually feature in a match. A month after making his first full start, he scored his first senior goal in December and despite it being a consolation, that mattered little as it broke Florian Wirtz's record, which was set when he scored for Leverkusen in a 4-2 loss to Bayern in June 2020.
Moukoko was rewarded with a call-up to the Germany under-21 squad, but unfortunately, that has now resulted in him suffering a major injury set-back. In fact, the 16-year-old didn't even feature for the team during the international hiatus and now has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a foot injury.
It's a real shame as he was just starting to find form and confidence, having scored three senior goals and setting numerous records, including becoming the Bundesliga's youngest ever debutant and the youngest ever participant in the Champions League.
Here's hoping that Moukoko makes a speedy recovery and is back to fighting fit as he, and certainly Bundesliga fans, look forward to seeing him on the pitch for the upcoming 2021/2022 season.
