Anyone who has watched FC Cologne’s home games this season will surely have seen all of the number 13 shirts in the crowd. The shirt belongs to Said El Mala, who only joined Effzeh in the summer but has quickly established himself as a fan favourite.
The hype surrounding the gifted left winger has not gone unnoticed by Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann either, as he has called up El Mala for the first time ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup 26™ qualifiers against Luxembourg and Slovakia.
“I want Said to show us his carefree and light-hearted side,” said Nagelsmann about the youngster, who also reacted enthusiastically: “I’m very, very happy to have been called up by the national team. It’s a great reward for all my hard work, and I’m proud to represent Cologne in the national shirt,” said the 19-year-old in an interview with his club’s website.
It is a meteoric rise for El Mala, who was born in Krefeld (between Duisburg and Dusseldorf) and grew up not far from Cologne, and who last season was still playing for Viktoria Cologne in Germany’s third division. Only a year earlier, he had been drafted into Viktoria’s first-team squad at the age of just 17, having racked up a combined 17 goals and assists in just 19 games at U-19 level.
In March 2024, El Mala made his senior debut for Viktoria and promptly scored a stunning winner in a 1-0 victory over VfB Lubeck. “I haven’t seen it on TV yet, but it looked incredible from where I was standing,” said his then coach Olaf Janssen after the match.
By then, the city’s leading club FC Cologne had also got wind of the youngster’s talent. In June 2024, they pipped the likes of Borussia Dortmund to the signatures of Said and his older brother Malek – but loaned them both back to Viktoria for another year due to a transfer ban.
After a successful season with Viktoria, which saw him register 13 goals and five assists in 32 appearances, the younger of the two El Mala brothers finally completed his switch in the summer of 2025, signing a contract until 2030. Although he has been mostly used as an impact player off the bench this season, he has already scored four goals and provided two assists in just 385 minutes. That has been enough to attract the attention of Nagelsmann, and El Mala is now the first Cologne player to have earned a national-team call-up since Jonas Hector.
All of this almost never happened as El Mala was let go by Borussia Monchengladbach at the age of 14 and even considered giving up football altogether. “It wasn’t so easy to accept,” he later recalled. “I was just released, from one day to the next. As a 14-year-old, you ask yourself: ‘What did I do wrong?’”
Instead, his brother Malek took him to one side and persuaded him to join him and his friends at local club TSV Meerbusch. “Malek was a very big factor,” revealed Said in an interview with the German FA. “He convinced me to play for TSV Meerbusch in the Lower Rhine league after I was released by Gladbach and taken away from that familiar environment.” The two brothers flourished with Meerbusch, and two years later they both joined Viktoria Cologne’s U-19 side.
The younger El Mala has all the flair of a street footballer, the type of player seen less and less in the modern game. “After we left the academy, we often played with our friends on local pitches in addition to our club training,” said Malek in an interview with FC Cologne’s club magazine. “We were able to try things out, dribble a lot and throw ourselves into 1v1s.”
Nagelsmann has stressed many times in the past that he does not rely solely on tactics and fixed routines, particularly for the likes of Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz, preferring to emphasise their instincts and street footballing qualities. El Mala’s creative and freewheeling style of play fits perfectly into that pattern.
As well as being dangerous in front of goal, the 19-year-old has a knack for slowing down when dribbling, outfoxing his opponent and then immediately picking up speed again. His ability to dribble along the touchline and goal line is also particularly impressive, allowing him to control the ball in the tightest of spaces and drive away from opponents.
All of these qualities mean that El Mala richly deserves his place in the latest Germany squad – even if he initially refused to answer Nagelmann’s call: “I don’t tend to pick up if I don’t recognise the number,” the youngster told Sky. “Then he sent me a message: ‘Hi, Julian Nagelsmann here, please call me back.’ I showed the message to my brother, and I just knew: I must have been called up.”
In June, El Mala starred for Germany in the UEFA European Under-19 Championship and finished as the tournament’s joint-top scorer with four goals. Now, less than six months later, he is in the senior squad. Little wonder, therefore, that many of Europe’s top clubs also have their eyes on the shooting star.
Cologne are under no illusions, but they are remaining calm for the moment: “Let’s not fool ourselves; we know he probably won’t be playing here for the next 15 years,” admitted head coach Lukas Kwasniok recently. “We have to develop him carefully – and one day sell him for an unbelievable amount of money.”
