Would you have known?
Twin brother of this national player is also a professional
October 9, 2025 – 7:35 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
After four years of absence, Ridle Baku is back with the national team. What very few people know: his twin brother also became a professional footballer.
Ridle Baku has had an excellent start to the season in the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig. After his winter move from VfL Wolfsburg, he really got off to a good start in his first full season at RB and is a regular player and top performer on the right side of defense for the Saxons, who are in third place.
Baku has been on the pitch in all of Leipzig’s seven competitive games so far and hasn’t missed a minute. The reward: national coach Julian Nagelsmann called the 27-year-old into the national team for the World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg (October 10th) and Northern Ireland (13th).
For Baku it is a return to the DFB team after four years. The last time he was there was under national coach Hansi Flick in November 2021. So far, Baku has played four international matches for the German senior national team.
Exciting: Ridle’s actual name is Bote Nzuzi Baku. In 2018, however, he had his nickname Ridle, which his father had given him after world champion Karl-Heinz Riedle, written into his passport. And: He is not the only one in his family who became a professional footballer. His twin brother also earns his money from the round leather. His name: Makana Baku.
The two were born in Mainz in April 1998. In addition to German citizenship, they also have Congolese citizenship, so they could also have played for the African country. Both began their football careers when they were young at FSV.
While Ridle made it into the professional ranks with the 05ers and celebrated his Bundesliga debut there in April 2018, Makana took a different path and began a club odyssey across Europe early on. In 2017, the offensive winger initially joined the then third division club Sonnenhof Großaspach. From there, after two years, he moved on to Holstein Kiel, where he made 20 second division appearances and four goals in the 2019/20 season. During this time he also played three games for the German U21 national team.
In January 2021, Makana was loaned to Warta Poznan in Poland for six months before the Turkish first division club Göztepe paid a transfer fee of 350,000 euros and sent him to the Bosphorus in the summer of 2021.
After just one season, he moved back to Poland for the same amount, this time to the top club there, Legia Warsaw. He loaned him to the Greek first division club OFI Crete for six months in January 2024. Makana Baku has been under contract with Crete’s league rivals Atromitos Athens since the summer of 2024 and is a regular player there. Things are going well for him in the current season: in seven competitive games in the league and cup, he prepared four goals as a winger.
The twins also have another brother who is talented in football. Kokolo Baku is five years older than Ridle and Makana and made 27 regional league appearances for FSV Frankfurt in 2012/13.