Why are the world's best NXGN wonderkids flocking to the Bundesliga?

There is an old adage that says once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend.

Well, what happens when that trend goes way beyond three? What happens when something happens dozens and dozens of times with no sign of stopping?

The continued rise of young stars in the Bundesliga is way beyond trend or coincidence. Rather, this rise is based on a mindset, one that has made Germany the home of the world's top footballing talents for the better part a decade.

Players from all over the world continue to flock to the country, and it shows no sign of stopping, as new starlets arive every year, hoping to become football's next big name.

Gone are some stars of yesteryear, players like Jadon Sancho, Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz. Soon, we will likely see some, like Erling Haaland, make their own megamoves too.

But talent development has become a key part of Germany's football culture, a pillar for a league that continues to do things its own way.

One look at the NXGN 2022 list of football's best wonderkids shows Germany's influence on the wonderkid front.

This year's award winner, Jude Bellingham, was a player that opted for Borussia Dortmund over Premier League suitors, knowing that a stint in Germany would allow him to reach a different level.

Fourth-placed Jamal Musiala made a similar choice, leaving Chelsea, and England, for Germany, joining giants Bayern Munich with hopes of becoming a world-class player.

And then there is second-placed Florian Wirtz, a homegrown star of the future whose ranking means that the Bundesliga is currently home to three of the top four teenagers in world football.

In total, the Bundesliga is home to five of this year's top 10 NXGN stars, with a further four of the top 50 scattered across German clubs.

Of players to have appeared in Europe's 'Big Five' leagues this season, five of the six youngest play in the Bundesliga. Of the eight youngest, only Mathys Tel of Rennes and Luka Romero of Lazio are not plying their trade in Germany.

The average age of Bundesliga players this season is just under 26, with France's Ligue 1 the only other league hitting that mark. Seria A's average age is just under 27, with the Premier League and La Liga just over the same number.

Once again, this is not a coincidence or a trend. It is the result of a carefully-crafted effort from German clubs, from the top of the league right down to the bottom.

Right now, the best example of that effort is Dortmund. Over the last decade, no club has developed talent quite like the Westfalenstadion outfit, allowing them to become the true launching pad of the game's next top stars.

Bellingham, Haaland, Pulisic, Sancho, Ousmane Dembele, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Gio Reyna, Robert Lewandowski... the list goes on and on. All were players brought in from outside of Germany's borders, and all have emerged as stars of the future and, ultimately, the present.

That is not an accident, but rather a key part of the club's philosophy. Dortmund are not bank-rolled by a mega-rich owner like Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain, and nor do they have the money or legacy of clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid or domestic rivals Bayern.

And so their pivot to youth over a decade ago was made partly out of necessity, as they needed to adapt to the ever-changing landscape at the top of the European game.

But it was not just about a need, but also a culture. as Dortmund prides itself on being a club that does right by everyone who comes through the door.

"It's part of our DNA that we definitely won't be able to hire the big stars, but that we will educate the young stars, that we will build stars," says Dortmund managing director, Carsten Cramer, tells GOAL.

"And if you do this in such a sustainable and credible way for 10-15 years, and if everyone knows that's the only alternative in order to be competitive, I'm very sure that the players think that Dortmund is the right place.

"Another reason for it could be that we are not in a capital city like London or Paris. Dortmund is a calm place. You can take your time. We have an Under-23s team and we have perfect youth coaching as well.

"So even if the players won't make the step into the first team, they know that they will be watched and observed in the second team and then the youth team."

He adds: "It is still one of our reputations: that Dortmund is one club where young players can make a career, where the club is really concerned and care about the players, but, which is I guess most important, where the players have with, a kind of high probability, a real chance to become part of the squad."

It's not just Dortmund, though, even if they are leading the charge. Top young talent is spread throughout the league, from Musiala at Bayern right to the bottom of the table.

Just this winter, Augsburg, a team battling relegation, spent €18 million (£15m/$20m) to make Ricardo Pepi the club's record signing.

Pepi, who ranks 10th on the NXGN 2022 list, was brought in not just for the future, but for the present as the club battles relegation. It is a lot to pin on a teenager's shoulders, but that sort of thing is routine in a league filled with clubs that have learned how to balance big tests with the right amount of leeway.

Like most young stars, Pepi faced a choice. He was wanted by clubs all over the world, but he chose the Bundesliga and, ultimately, a struggling club like Augsburg, because he believed it gave him the best chance to take his game as far as he can in the next few years.

Some see it as a move before the move, much like Bellingham's decision to play at Dortmund before likely returning to a top Premier League side, but Pepi believes he can find a home in Germany for the foreseeable future.

"I want to be able to succeed in this league," Pepi said in February, "and it's where everyone wants to come and play. In America, every single player wants to come play in the Bundesliga.

"I wouldn't say it's a stepping stone, but it's a great league to be in. If I stay here for five years, I wouldn't mind playing at this high level."

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His point was echoed by another American, Joe Scally, who made the move from NYCFC to Borussia Monchengladbach in 2020, before earning a more regular role in the first team this season.

"They give young players a chance," Scally said, reflecting on his own decision to head to Germany. "If they see them make a mistake, it's not going to wreck your career, you'll get another chance.

"I think that's been shown, that's been proven and, for American players, every single player that has come here as basically has done well for themselves."

For players, the allure of the Bundesliga is obvious.

For English speakers like Bellingham, Sancho, Pepi and Scally, it is a country that is very culturally friendly. Most players do learn German, but there is plenty of English spoken around the clubs, making adaptation easier.

Like Scally said, the Bundesliga is not a league that is as unforgiving as, say, the Premier League, where the combination of internal and external pressures have ruined many talented players.

But it's also no cakewalk, as players will regularly face off with several of the world's top teams.

It is just that the league is a bit more welcoming than others at its level. Players are nurtured and not discarded. They are treated like projects that will have ups and downs, not like replaceable pieces on a neverending conveyor belt of transfers.

But this approach is also great for the clubs themselves. Players like Dembele, Pulisic and Sancho got their starts in Germany and left Dortmund for massive fees. So too have Premier League stars like Roberto Firmino, Heung-min Son Ibrahima Konate, Naby Keita and Granit Xhaka, all of whom moved to the Bundesliga at a young age before being sold for a massive profit.

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For many clubs - basically all aside from Bayern - this is the only way of doing business and staying sustainable. Find talent, develop talent, sell talent: that's the easiest way to keep afloat in a sport that constantly pushes the envelope when it comes to spending.

The Bundesliga is at a higher level than, say, the Eredivisie, a league that has long been famous for developing attacking talent, in particular.

And the Bundesliga has money to spend, just not Premier League money. With that, the league can find a happy medium, bringing in the best young players just before they are actually ready to become stars.

"We have to be a bit more creative. We have to look for other solutions," says Cramer. "We don't have that much money. We are not owned by any investor or owned by any government like some of the Premier League clubs. We have to earn our money by ourselves, which means we don't have that much more money than others, and then you have to be creative.

"It's sometimes easier and, of course, also cheaper to develop young players to stars than to buy stars for a high fee and high salary when they are almost at the end of their career. That's the reason why we decided to choose a different approach.

"We collected the experiences over the last 10 to 15 years that this approach is successful, talking about the sporting targets and not only the business targets. That's the reason that we think it will be the right approach."

There is a third piece to this puzzle aside from the players and the clubs: the coaches.

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It is the coaches who are truly in charge of a player's development. They pick the line up, design the training sessions and choose who to trust with what and when. If coaches are not on board, if they are constantly fearing for their job or if they decide to put the present over the future, the whole plan crumbles.

But German football is littered with coaches that find themselves in a similar scenario to the players they manage. They are often plucked from obscurity and nurtured themselves, with several going on to manage at the top level.

It was not so long ago that Jurgen Klopp rose from unknown to one of the top managers in the world in his home country. Thomas Tuchel was once a youth coach charged with developing Mario Gomez and Holger Badstuber. Ralf Rangnick built RB Leipzig and its sister clubs around a system designed to make the most out of young stars.

"I think that the Bundesliga is a very, very competitive league," said Stuttgart boss Pellegrino Matarazzo, who manages Wahid Faghir, the 18-year old starlet hailed as the next Zlatan Ibrahimovic who also appears on the NXGN 2022 list.

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"There's a good balance between technicality, tactics and physicalness. I think it's a good stage for young players to develop.

"I think it's also important that coaches are bold enough to play young players if they're ready. And I think we see a lot of young coaches as well developing in the Bundesliga who are bold enough to play young players."

Germany's focus on tomorrow's stars is not going anywhere. It is ingrained in the country's football culture, much like cheap tickets, the 50+1 rule, hometown fan culture and beer in the stands.

Clubs like Dortmund will continue to set the tone, and players like Bellingham will continue to prove that the Bundesliga is a league where future stars can reach unimagined heights.

"If you see Jude Bellingham representing Dortmund, I would say, not only talking about his abilities in football, I’d say he's a perfect fit for what Dortmund is representing and looking for," Cramer concludes.

"That's the reason that I'm convinced that there is no real serious alternative to this approach."