Germany are in trouble! A “new transfer market” is getting increasingly heated

The transfer market has changed beyond recognition. Once seen as a by-product of football, it now sits at the centre of public attention. These days, many fans seem more interested in who their club might sign than in who takes the field, how they play and what results they get.

For those fans, another transfer market has emerged in recent years. In this one, football associations compete for players rather than clubs, often just as fiercely. The driving force lies beyond football: mass migration, as people seek a better or safer life, or both.

These movements mean a considerable proportion of the world's population have more than one homeland and are, in theory, eligible to play for more than one national team. This is particularly pronounced in Europe, especially in Germany.

Tresoldi may be Germany's most fiercely contested international prospect right now, but he is far from the only one. Germany's current U21 squad shows why winning these battles matters to the national team's future: 14 of its 23 players hold at least one other citizenship.

Alongside Tresoldi, the squad includes promising players such as Paris Brunner (DR Congo), Dzenan Pejcinovic (Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Karim Coulibaly (Ivory Coast). The picture is similar across all youth national teams. Niko Ilicevic, who recently made his Bundesliga debut for Eintracht Frankfurt a day after his 16th birthday, also holds Croatian citizenship. Their other home countries are courting them all, and each could still decide against a career with the DFB team despite having trained in Germany.

Jonathan Tah (Ivory Coast), Aleksandar Pavlovic (Serbia) and Jamal Musiala (England) have all stayed loyal to the DFB in recent years. Even so, Germany have lost too many high-calibre players to other associations. They would undoubtedly strengthen the DFB team now or in the future.

Danijel Lucic is a key figure for the Croatian football federation, the HNS, in Germany. He chairs the board of construction giant Saint-Gobain, which has several thousand employees. According to respected Croatian newspaper Jutarnji list , he has also spent years leading the search for players with Croatian roots in Germany, with the help of 20 volunteer scouts.

Every spring, Lucic reportedly assembles a team of talented players of Croatian descent living in Germany for a long-established U14 tournament in Vukovar. Youth teams from Croatian top-flight clubs such as Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split face makeshift diaspora teams from a range of countries. The HNS also has extensive scouting networks in other countries with large Croatian diasporas.

Vukovar's place in the Balkan War in the 1990s gives the city considerable emotional weight in Croatia, and its selection as the tournament venue was no accident. "When we bring the children to Vukovar, many of them only have a German passport," Lucic told Jutarnji list. "But after they have visited the city and heard the stories, they return and persuade their parents to get them a birth certificate and a Croatian passport." 

Among the tournament's notable former participants, according to the report, are Josip Stanisic, Igor Matanovic, Marko Pasalic and Marin Pongracic. All were born and trained in Germany before going on to play for Croatia's senior national team. Lucic said he personally pushed for Stanisic's first Croatia call-up in 2021. Stanisic has since developed into a full-back of international class at Bayern Munich, while the Germany team remain chronically short of players in precisely that position.

Filip Pavic is already following in Stanisic's footsteps. The 16-year-old from Freising is regarded as Bayern Munich's greatest defensive talent, and coach Vincent Kompany gave him his debut in March. That made Pavic the Munich club's second-youngest debutant, after Paul Wanner. He recently switched from Germany's U16s to the Croatian federation, where he currently plays for the U18s.

People in the game say an immediate senior national team debut isn't always needed to stop undecided talents switching national associations. They argue that the DFB too often fails to build an early emotional bond between dual nationals and the German national team. Key figures at the association rarely reach out early to build personal relationships with players and parents, or even congratulate them on a birthday or a goal. By the time they do, it is already (almost) too late, while other associations have long since done their groundwork meticulously.

For DFB managing director Andreas Rettig, the problem is clear. "We are called upon to strengthen this emotional bond and make even more effort across all age groups," Rettig told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger in March, "so that even a youth player feels: I don't want to leave here at all; I owe so much to the DFB."

Youth national team coaches also face occasional criticism over their quality, with current under-16 coach Marc-Patrick Meister singled out repeatedly. He ignored Maza from under-15 to under-17 level, allegedly had differences with Palma, who has now moved to Italy, and is said not to have made a real effort with Uzun and Yildiz. Both played for Turkey at youth level as a result. "Germany never approached me," Yildiz, who was born in Regensburg, later complained. "I would have considered an approach, but there was no call from the DFB."

When selecting their squads, youth national team coaches may sometimes lack the staffing support needed to keep track of all the talents at the country's 58 youth development centres.