On the last day of the summer transfer period Hertha BSC a real coup was achieved. However, it was not a sensational transfer that the Berlin second division football club managed to pull off at the last minute. It was about extending an existing contract.
Ibrahim Maza, 18 years old and born in Berlin, has committed himself to the club for which he played in his youth for another year (until 2027) at the end of August. thanks to exceptional football skills certainly had other options.
Maza is in demand – and not just at club level. His mother is Vietnamese, his father Algerian. The attacking midfielder can therefore choose which association he will play for in the future. He has now apparently done so. And what Hertha managed to do with Maza, the German Football Association (DFB) has not managed to do: to bind the talent to the club permanently.
Ibrahim Maza has apparently decided to play for the Algerian national team and not Germany. This was announced by Hannes Wolf, national coach of the German U20 team and sports director for training, youth and development at the DFB, on Sunday in the Sport-1 program “Doppelpass”.
We are coming with the U20s and Algeria is coming with the senior national team.
Hannes Wolf, Sports Director for Training, Youth and Development at the DFB
“He has the number 10 at Hertha, scores goals, was with us last time and will now choose Algeria anyway,” said Wolf. Maza evidently sees better chances of a national team career there. In Germany, he has played for the number 10, among others Florian Wirtz, Jamal Musiala and Paul Wanner, none of whom are significantly older than him. “That means he has the feeling that the position is closed,” explained Wolf.
Maza, who will be born in spring 2023 as a 17-year-old his professional debut for Hertha BSC has played a total of 13 times for Germany’s U18, U19 and U20 teams since 2022. In the current season, he is one of the most noticeable players in the second division. Maza not only wears the shirt with the prestigious number 10 at Hertha, he has also been given the role of playmaker.
In the past few weeks, the teenager has made another significant leap forward and, among other things, appears much more robust than in the previous season. “He is a player who can create very special moments on the pitch – with his way of playing football, with a lot of courage, heart and Berlin street footballer mentality,” Hertha’s sporting director Benjamin Weber said about Maza’s contract extension. In the still young season, he is the best scorer for the Berlin team with one goal and two assists.
The DFB is taking a relaxed approach to the issue
And yet: As a second division player the German national team For Maza, this is currently still out of reach. But the Algerian association is tempting him with this. “We are coming with the U20s, and Algeria is coming with the senior national team,” said DFB director Wolf. “And we have put everything on the table.”
Ibrahim Maza is not the only talent that the DFB has recently lost. Can Uzun (Eintracht Frankfurt), Kenan Yildiz (Juventus Turin) and Eren Dinkci (SC Freiburg) have chosen Turkey. Maza’s teammate Marton Dardai, also a native of Berlin and most recently a German U-21 international, has been playing for Hungary since the beginning of the yearDardai was primarily lured by the prospect of immediate promotion to the senior national team and participation in the European Championships in Germany.
Even if the loss of talent is annoying, the DFB is now dealing with this issue fairly calmly. “To persuade someone that they absolutely have to play for us, even if their heart is set on another nation, that is certainly wrong,” said Rudi Völler, the association’s sports director, on Saturday in the “Aktuelles Sportstudio”.
In any case, the association does not want to get involved in a bidding war. Not with Paul Wanner, who is also being courted by Austria, his mother’s home country. And not with Ibrahim Maza either. Rudi Völler says: “You shouldn’t promise something you can’t keep.”
