It was October 2010 when a father brought his seven-year-old son to Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium. It wasn’t a match day, but the dad was seeking a place for his boy to play football. Recently relocated from Germany, they were unfamiliar with the English football landscape. It seemed logical to approach the nearest professional club and inquire about playing opportunities. This is how Jamal Musiala, now a generational talent for Germany and a key creative force at Bayern Munich, took his first steps in football – in Southampton, as a vulnerable young boy with no English, looking up at his dad, desperately seeking a place to play.
Musiala, now 21, reminisces about that time while preparing for Bayern’s crucial match against Bayer Leverkusen. “My dad is always very open-minded, and when we first went to Southampton, I had nowhere to play and we knew nothing about the area, so we just went to the stadium on an off day – there was no game – just to see where I could play.” He adds, “I wouldn’t recommend that approach to others, but it happened that we met someone at the stadium who had a local team. Sometimes, you need a bit of luck. They said, ‘You should come over.’ I played with the local team for a while, and then Southampton noticed me and I had a trial with them.”
That person was Jazz Bhatti, a Southampton FC community worker, who sent Musiala to his brother’s kids’ team, City Central. Bhatti recalls, “Within 10 minutes of seeing the seven-year-old Musiala, my brother was on the phone insisting we get the Southampton scouts down to watch.” Musiala even outshone City Central’s star player at the time, Levi Colwill.
This is how England nearly won the allegiance of a German-Nigerian who found a home in Southampton, where his mother was on a one-year exchange program at Southampton University. Later, with Jamal attracting Chelsea’s attention, they moved to New Malden, south-west London, where he spent eight years in the Premier League club’s academy before joining Bayern at 16.
“Football builds friendships,” Musiala says. “It goes back to those early years when you just go to the park and make friends. It definitely helped me transition from Germany to England. I learned English quite quickly, but it took me a couple of months to really settle in and feel at home. For six months in England, I didn’t understand everything, couldn’t speak it properly, but because of football, I made my friends. It made life easy for me.”
England almost won that battle for his allegiance, but a German word, Bauchgefühl (gut feeling), sealed his decision. “I don’t think my decision would have changed. I was living in Munich when I made my choice, I was born here, my mum is from Germany. There was just a feeling, a Bauchgefühl. It had nothing to do with England. England is still a home to me.”
In England, memories and photos remain of an extraordinary England Under-16s team that included Musiala, Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, and Morgan Rogers. At Chelsea, he was close to Newcastle’s Tino Livramento and his Bayern teammate Michael Olise, whom he has supported in Germany.
Given that England is often caricatured as the land of 4-4-2 long-ball football, it’s intriguing to hear Musiala say that’s not what he learned there. “Football-wise, what helped me a lot in England was playing with freedom. When I was at the national team in England, the biggest goal for young players was to play with freedom and show their skills. That helped me develop my dribbling, skills, and get comfortable in tight situations, to keep playing even if I make mistakes. Sometimes, what you need is freedom as a young player.”
For most, it’s a trait they love in Musiala, and it earned him a place in the Euro 2024 team of the tournament, after his three goals made him the joint top scorer with Harry Kane. But the former Liverpool player Didi Hamann, a prominent German pundit, recently characterized it as a negative, labeling Musiala an “individualistic solo entertainer.”
Did that hurt? “Hurt?” he replied, snorting with laughter. “No, I’m a self-critical person already. There’s always going to be critics. I don’t look too much on social media, what’s being said. You’re going to see lots of good comments, but the one bad one will stay in your head. So I already try to stay away from that. The most important feedback I get is from the coaches, players, the team, my mum, and dad. These are the things I would take more seriously.”
Given his superb Euros performance, it’s a surprise he didn’t make the shortlist for next month’s Ballon d’Or of the best 30 players in the world. “I’d be lying if I said no individual awards matter to me,” he says. “I think everyone growing up wants to win an individual award of some kind. [But] the most important thing is, we had a tough season last season and [we need] to do better this season. The main focus is on winning trophies, and everything else will come when the time is right.”
The fact that Bayern ended last season without a trophy is something of a scandal in Bavaria. “It’s expected that you win a trophy, and there comes a pressure in that,” he says. Saturday’s visit of Leverkusen, the champions, means Bayern have an opportunity to put down a marker. “There’s lots of good competition in the league, and we just need to focus on ourselves right now and do the things right that we maybe didn’t do last season.”
If Bayern resume their trophy domination, England will surely claim a slice of credit, with Kane, Eric Dier, and Musiala (50% English, remember). “There is a lot of English spoken in the dressing room now,” he says, Olise adding to that mix. And the best German speaker among the English contingent? “Michael not. Harry? I think he can say a couple of words. Maybe Eric.”
Perhaps in time their influence may make Musiala reconnect with his English roots in the Premier League, though he is focused on restoring Bayern’s ascendancy. “I don’t really have a plan or anything. I don’t try to think too far forward about where I want to be because situations can always change by the year or by the month. At six years old, I didn’t think about being in England at seven! I don’t know. I’m open to everything, but I’m very happy where I am right now.” At least he will be at Villa Park on Wednesday night, the German wunderkind so nearly one of England’s own.
