Cologne head coach Lukas Kwasnyuk highly appreciated the progress of the 19-year-old prodigy Said El Mali on the ongoing sensitivity to interest in the new side of Manchester City and Brighton After the goats reach the Junior Bundesliga. This season, the German-Lebanese talent already has 11 effective actions - 8 goals and 3 assists.

For information, see Bayern Insider, for its development, see Manchester City Manchester United Tottenham, as well as Bayern Munich. In addition, previously Brighton had already verified the resolve of Cologne, creating their transfer proposal.

With the growing influx of El Mali into the team and the interest of top clubs, the Cologne coach speaks of the need for a careful approach to the development of young players.

“Said started most of his matches from the bench in order to smoothly adapt to the most elite division. I'm sorry, everything will always come down to how we can integrate Said into the underground structure, and now we will want to put new shouts in front of him, because he is simply a great talent. During training, I see that the boy has a great desire to thoroughly master in many aspects. It would be fatal, as if we didn’t want anything, and even in 19 years it’s logically not ideal,” Kvasnyuk said.

The club's sporting director, Thomas Kessler, also tried to change the media pressure to the final star. He announced that the club had entered into negotiations and extended the contract with Said for another term - until 2030. Behind Kessler's words there is a clear signal that Cologne is tying its future to its leader.

Ahead of El Malu and Cologne is a busy weekend - a match against Borussia Dortmund. In fact, Kvasnyuk’s team is fighting to maintain a place in the elite, sitting in 13th place (24 points) and having a slight handicap out of the villoto zone..