Said El Mala has burst onto the scene at FC Köln and he’s quickly become a transfer target for several top clubs across Europe including Bayern Munich. His profile has been compared to that of Lennart
Karl and Jamal Musiala with his pace, dribbling abilities, and finishing, but he’s his own player and, by the looks of things, has quite a high ceiling ahead of him.
So far this season, El Mala has tallied seven goals and three assists from a total of twenty appearances across all competitions and also recorded an assist for the Germany U-21 side in the U-21 European Championship qualifying in their most recent qualifier against Georgia. Much like for Karl, there have been calls from pundits across Germany for Julian Nagelsmann to give El Mala a callup to the Germany senior squad at some point before this summer’s World Cup and possibly even include him in the final roster that heads to the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
It’s no secret that El Mala is one of the names on Bayern’s transfer targets list for the summer, but his market value will likely continue to climb as this season progresses and Köln would definitely want to get a pretty penny for selling a start to a rival Bundesliga club. As such, Bayern board member for sport Max Eberl was recently asked about the 19-year-old phenom, but he did not want to go into any sort of detail about Bayern’s interest in the player.
“You’ll have to ask my Köln colleagues what they think of him. He’s under contract with FC Köln. It’s a great story. He’s from Köln and also played in Gladbach’s youth academy, if I understood correctly,” Eberl replied when he was aksed whether or not El Mala could play for Bayern one day (via @iMiaSanMia). Of course, Eberl had a long tenure as Borussia Mönchengladbach’s sporting director before taking on his role at RB Leipzig, and subsequently, Bayern.
Right now, El Mala is valuated at 40 million euros and his current contract with Köln is set to run through June 2030, so Köln does have leverage when it comes to interested clubs coming to the negotiating table for him. Additionally, he does not have a release clause in his contract, so Köln do hold all of the cards in that sense, especially if they’ll be dealing with Bayern or another Bundesliga club.
