12 goals in 25 games: Younes Ebnoutalib on brink of German cap

With twelve goals in twenty‑five matches for Eintracht Frankfurt, the 23‑year‑old striker Younes Ebnoutalib could possibly be on the brink of making his debut for the German national team on Thursday in the Nations‑League‑duel against the Netherlands. The season has started excellently for the talented forward, with five goals and two assists in his first five games.

Serie C‑background and the road to the Bundesliga

Ebnoutalib started in 2016 with the youth of Rot‑Weiss Frankfurt. After a stopover at Wehen Wiesbaden, he switched in 2022 from Rot‑Weiss Frankfurt to the youth of Perugia in Italy. At Perugia he made his professional debut in a Serie C‑match against Lucchese, but thereafter received no further competitive minutes.

In the summer of 2024 Perugia decided not to extend his contract. Not good enough for Serie C, he returned to the fourth level of Germany and briefly played for FC Giessen, where he initially did not get a regular starting spot.

Breakthrough at SV Elversberg and the jump to the second Bundesliga

When rival Fisnik Asllani left, Ebnoutalib seized his chance at SV Elversberg and scored six goals in nineteen games. These performances convinced the second‑division club, SV Elversberg, to pick him up in the winter.

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In the second Bundesliga he kept scoring: twelve goals in twenty‑five matches led to a dream transfer at the start of this calendar year, when Eintracht Frankfurt – the club from his hometown – signed him as a top scorer.

International ambitions and recent developments

Although he hoped last summer for a place in Morocco’s World Cup squad, national coach Mohamed Ouahbi left him out with the comment that he was not ready for it. The German national coach Jürgen Klopp, however, called, after which Ebnoutalib said: “Who wouldn’t want that? If Klopp calls you, you have to go.”

With that call he is now on the verge of making his first international appearance for Germany in the Nations‑League‑duel against the Netherlands, an unexpected twist in a career that began in Serie C and now approaches a top‑league debut.