Oliver Glasner, coach at Eintracht Frankfurt, currently has a number of reasons to make a face. The defensive behavior in the early stages at Hertha BSC on Saturday, which led to the deficit after three minutes? “Disastrous.” The canceled penalty whistle that denied Eintracht the chance of a possible 2-1 at the end of the game at Hertha BSC? “A game-changing mistake.” And anyway, this basic mood, which is still carried by the euphoria of last season’s Europa League victory and distorts the view of reality? Bah! “We shouldn’t always talk about Europe, but also about the fact that we finished eleventh in the Bundesliga last season,” snapped Glasner in Berlin. But when the name of French striker Randal Kolo Muani was mentioned, who in his first start for Eintracht indicated that he could become one of the biggest attractions in the league, Glasner smiled: “Great performance.”
In his first two games – the disastrous 6-1 in the Bundesliga opener against FC Bayern and the 2-0 in the Supercup against Real Madrid – Kolo Muani, 23, rebalanced the games again. Not that he could have averted the defeats. But with incredible pace and a formidable instinct for moves that unnerved opposing defences, he raised a number of eyebrows in the stands. He has already collected his first scorer points in the Bundesliga: against Bayern he took goalkeeper Manuel Neuer by surprise and scored a goal, on Saturday he passed Daichi Kamada the 1-1 draw against Hertha.
That wasn’t the only scene of the game in which an excellent quality, which is not a matter of course for a striker, came to the fore. Kolo Muani is an altruist who gets as much satisfaction from setting up goals as he does from scoring personally. This all adds up to promising forecasts – because he can basically be used in all positions in the attack, preferably in the center and on the right. “The boy can go through the roof,” says Hertha managing director Fredi Bobic.
Bobic, who has been in Berlin for a year, is not only a good key witness because he was once a successful striker himself. But because he had initiated the transfer when he was still in charge at Eintracht. “My team and I have been working very closely with him since autumn 2020,” he says, and of course mentions the good eye of Ben Manga, director of professional football, who has found many a pearl in the shallows of the transfer market for Eintracht.
“Other professional footballers go to Dubai for holidays. He went to Villepinte until last year.”
“He wasn’t quite finished training then, his header was still unclean, the ball would sometimes go away, there was room for improvement in the finish. But he had the basic equipment,” recalls Bobic. Eintracht were willing to bring him to Frankfurt in winter 20/21, but the price FC Nantes asked was too expensive. Eintracht preferred to wait until his contract expired. Kolo Muani actually came on a free transfer – and signed a contract until 2027 with Bobic’s successor, sports director Markus Krösche.
“Markus and Ben Manga continued that very well,” says Bobic, “the fact that the boy kept his word says a lot about him. I think it’s good!” It goes without saying that Bobic could have imagined this Kolo Muani in Berlin. But there were no serious thoughts. Especially since Hertha would not have been financially able to enter a competition. It wasn’t just Frankfurt that had noticed Kolo Muani, there were also a number of other clubs interested in a player who won the fourth French Cup in club history with FC Nantes as a farewell – and previously scored twelve goals in 36 league games this season had scored. The fact that he went to Eintracht probably has something to do with a trait that he once attested to himself in an interview: “I’m loyal.”
Like the former manager Bobic, those responsible in Frankfurt are full of praise for the tidiness and modesty of the new striker, they also praise his hunger, his will to learn, his manners and his healthy environment.
At Nantes, they consider him the best striker to come up from the youth ranks in recent decades
Like Kylian Mbappé, now the highest-paid footballer in the star ensemble Paris Saint-Germain, Kolo Muani was born in Bondy. But he grew up in another city in the Parisian banlieue, in Villepinte – a place to which he was drawn until the end. “Other professional footballers go to Dubai for their holidays. He used to go to Villepinte until last year,” his brother Kevin told the newspaper Ouest France.
Unorthodox and assertive style of play: Randal Kolo Muani.
(Photo: Tilo Wiedensoler/camera4+/imago)
Kolo Mouani’s talent is said to have been obvious from an early age. But his applications to youth centers – at AS Saint-Étienne and the French FA academy in Clairefontaine – were turned down. This was also due to the fact that the now 1.87 meter tall, physically impressive and extremely fast striker suffered from what is known as Osgood-Schlatter disease in his youth – a growth-related disease that primarily affects young athletes and leads to knee pain.
Kolo Muani only switched to the youth academy of FC Nantes at the age of 16 – and seemed to make up for lost time in a hurry, without forgetting what he had learned on the road: his game is as unorthodox as it is assertive. In the 2016/17 season, the then coach Sérgio Conceição called him up for first division games. He only made his first division debut in November 2018, shortly after which he was loaned out to second division side US Boulogne to gain match practice. It paid off: in Nantes they consider him the best striker to come up from the youth department in recent decades. And in Frankfurt they are already enthusiastic.
Captain Kevin Trapp, something like the Minister of Integration in the Eintracht dressing room and used to great talent as a former PSG professional, also took off his hat on Saturday. “Very impressive,” said the young Frenchman, “he has a lot of speed, is very good in tackles and keeps getting hold of balls that were thought lost.” They want to enjoy his presence while they can. Because his dream is declared the Premier League.