Bellingham, Musiala & Co.: Bundesliga has the most valuable U21 talents

Homegrown the exception

Jude Bellingham (19, BVB), Jamal Musiala (19, FC Bayern) and Josko Gvardiol (20, RB Leipzig) have recently increased their market value massively and are among the most valuable U21 footballers in the world. With its talents, the Bundesliga can even set up the world’s most valuable eleven of all professional leagues with a market value of over 520 million euros – not even the Premier League and LaLiga can keep up. So does the Bundesliga do the best youth work?

Hardly, because most of the top talents received most of their training abroad. Germany’s premier league enjoys an excellent reputation internationally, because that’s where the greatest hopes of youngsters get playing time at the highest level, can increase their market value and flush their club with a hefty transfer profit in the event of a change – only winners, right? BVB alone achieved a plus of over 250 million euros with the transfers of Ousmane Dembélé, Jadon Sancho, Christian Pulisic and Erling Haaland.

The greatest talents from abroad either take the last step in Germany before making the leap to the professional squad or they start at the highest level right away. Florian Wirtz, Karim Adeyemi and Freiburg’s goalkeeper talent Noah Atubolu are only three players in the currently most valuable U21 team who completed most of their football training in Germany.

21 and under
Most valuable Bundesliga talentsTo overview
Wirtz switched from 1. FC Köln to Bayer for 200,000 euros before making his debut in the 1st division a short time later, Adeyemi took the detour from Unterhaching via Salzburg to Dortmund and Germany’s U21 international Atubolu is the only homegrown player in this selection who is still is active for his hometown club. The latter is probably also due to the fact that German goalkeeper training in particular is among the best in the world and that there is therefore less demand for this position.

Talent pools of the top nations: France, England, Italy, Spain, Brazil & Germany

The demand for Bundesliga talents – especially on the island – remains high. In order to forestall interest in Wirtz, who has been out since March with a cruciate ligament rupture, Bayer gave their most valuable player a contract that runs until 2027 in the summer. RB Leipzig did the same on Deadline Day with Gvardiol, who after just a year in Germany ranks among the top ten most valuable central defenders in the world, while Bellingham’s question is no longer if he moves to the Premier League, but rather when.

The situation is different with the talents of FC Bayern, since the Munich team is the only German representative at the top of the football food chain. According to “Sport Bild” information, Musiala’s contract, which runs until 2026 and which he signed in March 2021, should give him around 5 million euros per season – it’s a matter of time before Bayern adapt it to his performance in order to attract interest in the to nip the germ. The record champions are also increasingly relying on promising talents such as Ryan Gravenberch (20) and Mathys Tel (17) for their transfers, because even on Säbener Straße you can’t and don’t want to compete with English clubs in the transfer game for ready-made players.

This abundance of foreign talent reduces the chances of young German footballers to play minutes. U21 national coach Antonio Di Salvo addressed this problem in the “Kicker”: “In the other leagues, the playing minutes of the local U21 players are three or four times as high” as in Germany. “We lack the breadth of players who get practice in the Bundesliga. Our pool of candidates is much smaller than that of the French or the English. Some of them play in the Bundesliga with us, but many others in the domestic leagues.”

21 and under
Most valuable Germans at home and abroadTo overview
The Bundesliga as a springboard for the greatest talents is therefore both a blessing and a curse. Di Salvo hopes from the DFB point of view: “Of course the clubs have their goals, but if a German player is just as good as a foreign player, I naturally hope that he plays.”

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