★ Moneyball Original · Scouting
The Klopp effect: Younes Ebnoutalib chose Germany over Morocco. This is the forward Germany are getting
By Moneyball Editorial · published · updated
"There were talks with Morocco. But when Jürgen Klopp calls, you can't say no." With that sentence Younes Ebnoutalib, the 23-year-old Eintracht Frankfurt forward, ended months of questions about his international future. He had played for Morocco at under-15 level and the Moroccan federation had followed him for some time. Klopp travelled to Frankfurt to speak to him in person, and his first Germany call-up was reported on 17 September.
It is a story about a conversation. This column is about the player at the other end of it. Frankfurt paid a reported €10 million for him. What has he done since, and is he a Germany forward on merit or on momentum?
This column does what Moneyball always does with a story like this: it puts the numbers under it. Twelve methods, the Stats Centre for the player and for his club, and the report from Scouting Players Research. Everything is explained in plain words, so you do not need to know what xG means before you start.
How to read this, in plain words. The Moneyball Score is a number from 0 to 100. It asks one question: compared with every player in the same position, how much does this player do of the things his position is there to do, for every 90 minutes he plays? Around 50 is an average regular. Above 70 is a starter for a club in European competition. Above 85 is among the best in the world. Potential is where the score is expected to go as he ages, from the way players in his position usually develop. Moneyball Value is a fair transfer fee worked out from his score, age, position, league and minutes. A young player with few minutes is deliberately scored with caution: the model would rather be late than fooled.
1. His season so far
| 2026/27 | Bundesliga | League and European cups |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes | 592 | 592 |
| Matches | 9 | 9 |
| Goals | 6 | 6 |
| Assists | 1 | 1 |
| Expected goals (xG) | 4.77 | 4.77 |
| Goals per 90 | 0.91 | 0.91 |
| xG per 90 | 0.73 | 0.73 |
| Shots per 90 | 3.3 | 3.3 |
| Key passes per 90 | 0.9 | 0.9 |
| Successful dribbles per 90 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| Average match rating | 7.08 | 7.08 |
Younes Ebnoutalib has played 592 Bundesliga minutes for Eintracht Frankfurt: 6 goals and 1 assist. Totals flatter players who play more, so scouts divide by minutes and multiply by 90: what would he do in one full match? Per 90 minutes he scores 0.91, which is 4th of the 47 forwards in the league with 270 minutes or more.
2. Expected goals: were the goals deserved?
Expected goals (xG) gives every shot a value between 0 and 1: how often a shot like that goes in. A penalty is about 0.76. A shot from 30 metres is about 0.03. Add up a player's shots and you get the goals an average finisher would have scored from his chances.
His chances have been worth 4.77 xG and he has scored 6. The two numbers are close, which is the healthiest sign there is: he scores what his chances are worth, with no luck holding the total up. On xG per 90 (0.73) he is 4th of 47 forwards in the league. He also creates: 0.9 key passes per 90, 35th of 47. A key pass is a pass that leads straight to a team-mate's shot. And he beats his man 1.8 times per 90, 7th of 47.
3. How much should we trust so few minutes?
This is where most hype goes wrong. 592 minutes is about 7 full matches. Moneyball treats a small sample the way a careful scout would: it believes it only in proportion to its size. He has 49% of the 1,200 minutes the model wants, so it pulls his score toward the average of his position by the missing 51%. If he keeps this level, his score rises by itself as the minutes come: about 7 more full matches and it is read at full strength. This is called Bayesian shrinkage, and it is the reason Moneyball does not crown a new star every weekend.
4. Scouting Players Research: the report
Younes Ebnoutalib, 23, plays as a centre-forward for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga. Strongest for his role in goals, luck taken out and expected goals. Weakest in big chances missed.
| Scouting Players Research | Younes Ebnoutalib |
|---|---|
| Role and type | Centre-forward, poacher |
| Moneyball Score (league and European cups, adjusted for strength) | 62 |
| Rank among the centre-forwards of 16 leagues | 65th of 1149 |
| Rank among the centre-forwards of his league | 13th of 49 |
| Moneyball Value (estimate) | €14.6M to €45.1M (mid €29.9M) |
| Age curve: score in 1, 2, 3, 4 years | 70 · 70 · 70 · 70 |
| What Scouting weighs for his role | Percentile among centre-forwards |
|---|---|
| Expected goals | 93rd |
| Goals, luck taken out | 93rd |
| Shots | 81st |
| Shot quality (xG per shot) | 83rd |
| Aerial duels won | 24th |
| Shots on target | 75th |
| Duels won | 43rd |
| Key passes | 57th |
The players most like him
| Most like him in Scouting | Club | Similarity |
|---|---|---|
| Emmanuel Emegha | Chelsea | 90% |
| Luis Suárez | Sporting CP | 90% |
| Nathan Fogaça | Mirassol | 89% |
| Callum Wilson | Brentford | 88% |
| Oumar Diouf | Sint-Truiden | 88% |
The table of percentiles is the heart of the report. Each line is one thing his position is there to do, and the percentile says how many players in the same position he beats at it, out of every 100. Green is elite, red is a weakness to work on. The "players most like him" are found by comparing the whole pattern, not one figure: they are the players whose strengths and weaknesses have the same shape as his.
17. The club around him: Eintracht Frankfurt
| Measure | Eintracht Frankfurt | Rank of 18 |
|---|---|---|
| League position (points) | 12 pts from 9 | 10th |
| Expected points (from xG) | 10.6 from 9 | 12th |
| Pi-rating (goal margin vs average) | −0.03 | 10th |
| Strength after shrinkage (xG margin per match) | −0.24 | 12th |
| Projected final points | 43 | 11th |
Eintracht Frankfurt are 10th in the Bundesliga on 12 points from 9 matches. Expected points, the points their chances usually earn, rank them 12th. The table is an honest picture of the side he plays in. A player's numbers depend on his team: a forward in a side that creates little gets few chances, however good he is, and a defender in a side that is always under pressure looks busier than he is. Eintracht Frankfurt create 1.67 xG a match and allow 2.12.
18. What he is worth in points
The most useful question in recruitment is not "how good is he?" but "how many points does he add?". Moneyball answers it by replaying the club's season twice through the Dixon-Coles model, once with his chances and once with an average Bundesliga forward's in the same minutes. With him, a match played like Eintracht Frankfurt's is won 30% of the time; without him, 26%. Over a season that is about +4.7 points.
19. Why Morocco wanted him, and why Germany moved first
Morocco reached the World Cup semi-final in 2022 with a squad full of players born and trained in Europe who chose to play for them. Persuading such players has been one of their great strengths. Losing one to a personal visit from Germany's new coach is the same game played against them.
For Germany the reason is in the tables above. Among Bundesliga forwards with 270 minutes or more he is 4th of 47 for goals per 90 and 4th for xG per 90. A national team always needs forwards who score at that rate, and they are harder to find than wingers or midfielders.
And unlike many hot starts, this one is backed by the chances: his goals are close to his xG, so there is no lucky streak waiting to end.
For what it is worth in money: Moneyball Value puts a fair fee between €14.6M and €45.1M today, and the age curve says the number rises with him. It is an estimate from his figures, not a price anyone has quoted.
20. What the numbers cannot see
A fair column says where its method stops. The numbers do not see how he trains, how he lives, how he reacts to a bad month or what the coach asks of him in a given match. They do not see an injury coming. And they are only as good as the minutes behind them. What they do well is remove the two things that fool people most often: the highlight clip, which shows the best ten seconds of a player's month, and the reputation, which says more about his club's fame than about him. Use the score as a careful first opinion, then watch him play.
The Moneyball verdict
Klopp did not call a project. He called a forward who is scoring now. A Moneyball Score of 62 says he is already a good Bundesliga player. The excitement is about the direction, and the direction is up: the age curve takes him to about 70. The conversation made the headline. The chances he gets every week are why it happened.
- Per 90 minutes: every figure divided by minutes played, so a substitute and a starter can be compared fairly.
- League-strength adjustment: Moneyball Scout weighs a season in Ligue 1 at 0.90 of the same season in the Premier League (Serie A 0.95, La Liga 0.96, Bundesliga 0.94).
- Bayesian shrinkage: with few minutes a figure is pulled toward the average of his position, so three good matches are not mistaken for a great player.
- Last season at 70% weight: last season's figures are blended in, a little lighter than this season's.
- Percentiles within his position: a centre-back is ranked against centre-backs, a winger against wingers. The 90th percentile means better than 90 of every 100.
- Role templates: each position is judged on what it is there to do; a striker on chances and goals, a full-back on defending and crossing.
- Position familiarity: where else he could play, from where he has played.
- Win-rate impact: the points he adds to a club over a season, by replaying its matches with and without him through the Dixon-Coles model.
- Expected goals (xG): the quality of every chance, so a team is judged on what it created and allowed, not only on what went in.
- Expected points: each match's xG run through a Dixon-Coles score matrix (the Poisson model with the low-score correction the Match Board uses) to give the points a performance usually earns.
- Age curve: how players of his position usually develop year by year, used for his potential.
- Moneyball Value: a fair fee from his score, age, position, league and minutes.
Analysis by Moneyball Editorial. The quote, the under-15 matches for Morocco, Klopp's visit to Frankfurt, the call-up reported on 17 September 2026 and the reported fee of about €10 million are as published by Sky Sport Germany, beIN Sports, Bulinews and Morocco World News. Every figure is read from the Sportmonks data at each update, and the sentences around it change with it.
Younes Ebnoutalib in the Stats Centre Younes Ebnoutalib in Scouting Players Research Eintracht Frankfurt in the Stats Centre
Questions
- Who is Younes Ebnoutalib?
- Younes Ebnoutalib, 23, plays for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga. This season he has 6 goals and 1 assist in 592 league minutes.
- How good is Younes Ebnoutalib on the numbers?
- His Moneyball Score is 62 out of 100, 65th of 1149 players in his position across the leagues Moneyball follows. The age curve projects about 70 at his best in the next four years.
- What is Younes Ebnoutalib worth?
- Moneyball Value puts a fair fee between €14.6M and €45.1M. It is an estimate from his score, age, position, league and minutes, not a quoted price.