What Will The Future Hold For Youssoufa Moukoko At Borussia Dortmund?
Elsewhere on the site you can read about Sébastien Haller and the fact that his future at BVB is now in doubt. It is a sad fact that some players just don’t work at some clubs, in spite of the best wishes of all parties.
Haller isn’t the only example of a talented player who hasn’t been able to make his career work at a high-profile club and he won’t be the last. That fact is proven by the fact that things don’t seem to be going right at the Westfalenstadion for Youssoufa Moukoko either, with the Cameroonian youngster having been sent out on loan to Nice for the season. The question is, is his situation rescuable at Borussia Dortmund?
Who is Youssoufa Moukoko?
Born on the 20th of November 2004 in the Cameroon capital of Yaoundé, he joined the German side FC St. Pauli as a youth prospect in 2014 when he was just ten-years-old. He remained there for two years, initially playing in the Under-13s before being moved to play with the Under-15s.
It was during his time with the older age group that he began to capture the attention of those outside of the club, finding the net 23 times in 13 games. That was enough to encourage Borussia Dortmund to sign him for their youth academy, doing so in the July of 2016. He appeared in the Under-17 Bundesliga, being the only 13-year-old to do so.
Ahead of the 2019-2020 season, Moukoko had impressed enough to be moved up to Der BVB’s Under-19s side, even though he was only 14 at the time. He soon proved it was the right decision, however, when he scored six goals in his first match at that level when Dortmund defeated Wuppertaler SV 9-2.
On the 17th of September 2019 he played against Barcelona in the first UEFA Youth League match of his burgeoning career. A little over a month later, he became the competition’s youngest ever scorer when he netted against Inter Milan. For the Under-17s and Under-19s he scored 141 goals in just 88 games; an impressive record.
Breaking Through at Dortmund
Given the record that Moukoko had in the youth system, it is perhaps not all that surprising that he was soon called up to train with the first team. It was Lucien Favre who made the decision to bring him into BVB’s senior squad in the wake of a change to the age restrictions put in place by the DFB. The day after his 16th birthday, Moukoko replaced Erling Haaland in the 85th minute and made his debut in a game against Hertha BSC.
That made him the youngest player ever to play in the Bundesliga, replacing a record set by the man that would become his future manager, Nuri Şahin. Dortmund went on to win the match 5-2.
@dmac_football Youssoufa Moukoko to LEAVE Dortmund? #bvb #dortmund #moukoko #bundesliga
Moukoko then became the youngest player ever to play in the Champions League when he came on as a substitute against Zenit Saint Petersburg. Two weeks later and he made his first start for Borussia Dortmund when he was selected to play against Werder Bremen, then three days after that he was the Bundesliga’s youngest ever goalscorer when he found the back of the net against Union Berlin.
Favre and his successor Edin Terzić played him 14 times in the league in the 2020-2021 campaign, scoring three goals prior to picking up and injury in March that then ruled him out of action for the rest of the season.
Why is His Future in Doubt?
There will be plenty of people involved with the setup at Borussia Dortmund who would no doubt scoff at the very idea of Moukoko’s future at the Westfalenstadion being in any doubt whatsoever. After all, he was used much more frequently in the 2022-2023 campaign after the departures of Haaland and Steffen Tigges.
The 17th of September again proved to be an important date for him, scoring the winning goal in the Revierderby against FC Schalke 04. When he scored twice against VfL Bochum on the fifth of November 2022 he became the first teenager to reach the ten goal mark in the German top-flight.
https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1817574471642783765
Any question marks around his future at the club might well have been put to rest in the January of 2023 when he extended his contract with Der BVB until 2026. At the start of the following season, however, some began to question how much Şahin trusted him when he chose to send the player on a loan to the French club Nice.
Two goals in his first give games for the side are suggestive of a player who knows how to find the back of the net in any country and at any level, but it looks as though his future will not be at Signal Iduna Park. His agent spoke to Fabrizio Romano and said that promises made when he signed his contract extension weren’t kept.
