Jamie Bynoe-Gittens is the name of Borussia Dortmund’s next top talent. BVB recently gave the 18-year-old a long-term contract. Parallels to ex-player Jadon Sancho are no coincidence.
August 12, 2022 will probably stay in Jamie Bynoe-Gittens’ memory for a long time. Borussia Dortmund coach Edin Terzic brought the 18-year-old on in the 64th minute of the game against SC Freiburg. At this point, Freiburg were leading 1-0, while BVB was struggling on the offensive. Then, in the 77th minute, Bynoe-Gittens simply took aim from 20 meters. The shot actually came too centrally on goal, but Freiburg keeper Mark Flekken let the ball slip through his hands and into the goal. It was the goal to make it 1-1 and Bynoe-Gitten’s first Bundesliga goal in six games.
“In the first five seconds I just ran in circles and screamed with happiness,” said Bynoe-Gittens in a video on the BVB YouTube channel about this moment. “It meant a lot to me.”
Terzic: “Jamie is a game changer”
BVB ultimately won the game 3-1. And Bynoe-Gittens also played a decisive part in the 2:1 when he initiated the goal by Youssoufa Moukoko with a strong dribbling. “Jamie is a game changer. I wanted him to make the difference. That worked,” Terzic said after the game on “DAZN”.
The reward for the strong performance was on Tuesday. BVB has extended the contract with Bynoe-Gittens until the summer of 2025. “Jamie has always been characterized by speed and creativity, with his unpredictability in one-on-ones he gives our squad a very special element even at a young age. We are far from seeing the end of this development, we will give him the necessary time for it give,” said BVB sports director Sebastian Kehl. Bynoe-Gittens should join the ranks of hopeful talents like Ousmane Dembele (FC Barcelona), Christian Pulisic (FC Chelsea) or Jude Bellingham (BVB), who made the leap to world-class footballers in Dortmund.
Parallels to Jadon Sancho obvious
Of course, this also includes Jadon Sancho, who switched from BVB to Manchester United in the summer of 2021 for 85 million euros. The parallels between Sancho and Bynoe-Gittens are obvious. Both are technically strong wingers, both came to BVB from the Manchester City academy and both have the same agent. In addition, Bynoe-Gittens describes Sancho as an inspiration. “In a way, I want to be like him,” Bynoe-Gittens told Secret Scout a few years ago.
The fact that the 18-year-old ended up in Dortmund is probably partly related to Sancho. Both were also born in London. But then the similarities disappear. Because while Sancho started at Watford FC, Bynoe-Gittens learned to play football in Reading, west of London. In the U6s he scored a whopping 70 of 120 goals this season for Caversham Trents FC. “I stood there with my mouth open. I couldn’t even tell if he was right- or left-footed,” his first coach Andy Horn told the “Ruhr Nachrichten”.
In his first game, Bynoe-Gittens scored three goals in just ten minutes of play. “Jamie was fast, extremely safe with the ball. We had a good team, but everyone could see at first glance: This boy is something very special. And he was only five years old,” Horn recalled.
Reading FC instead of Arsenal or Chelsea
So it’s no wonder that clubs like Arsenal FC, Chelsea FC and Queens Park Rangers took notice of the talent early on. But Bynoe-Gitten’s parents Sharon and Mike Bynoe-Gittens chose Reading FC. It was here that Bynoe-Gittens learned his technical skills. On his own, so to speak, because the training took place on his school’s artificial turf pitch. “There were always 50 of us running around during the lunch break. We could do whatever we wanted: tricks or step-overs,” said Bynoe-Gittens.
At the age of 14, the son of a cricketer then made the leap to a top club and joined Manchester City’s academy. “It was an easy decision,” he said of the move. “I chose City because they released players like Brahim Diaz or Jadon Sancho.” While at Manchester City, Bynoe-Gittens made his debut for the England U16 national team and also featured in the U18 Premier League.
Change to BVB after two years in Manchester
In September 2020, after only two years in Manchester, he switched to BVB. Because City Bynoe-Gittens had not signed a professional contract, there was no transfer fee for the change, but only a training allowance of around 90,000 euros.
Jamie Bynoe-Gittens celebrates his goal in the U19 Bundesliga final against Hertha BSC.
Bynoe-Gittens was 16 at the time and was initially supposed to play for Dortmund’s U19s. However, several ankle injuries and a corona disease meant that Bynoe-Gittens only played two games for BVB in his first year. But he fought back and, after his comeback in November 2021, scored nine goals in nine games for BVB’s U19s. “We can’t and don’t want to slow him down,” said U19 coach Mike Tullberg at the time. In the U19s, Bynoe-Gittens wore the number seven jersey – the number that Jadon Sancho wore at BVB.
Pro debut in April 2022
With the BVB U19s he won the German championship in the final against Hertha BSC (2:1) at the end of May. Bynoe-Gittens scored the goal to make it 1-1. He was also European U19 champion with England.
In April 2022, he made his Bundesliga debut for BVB against VfL Wolfsburg under Marco Rose. Four more games were added. He was in the starting eleven for the first time against VfL Bochum (3:4) and played 63 minutes. Now the young Englishman should develop further in peace. Bynoe-Gittens wears number 43 in the pros. Sancho’s former number seven is occupied by Giovanni Reyna. But four plus three equals seven.
