Meet the German transfer guru behind Ekitike, Marmoush and Kolo Muani

Eintracht Frankfurt’s transfer policy is the envy of most of Europe.

Sat across a boardroom table, in offices under the shadow of Deutsche Bank Park, Markus Kroesche, its architect, is explaining to The Athletic how that strategy works.

Kroesche, 45, has been Frankfurt’s board member for sport since 2021. In those four years, the club has won the Europa League (2022), qualified for the Champions League twice, and made a player trading profit of €169m (£149m; $195m), which is the fifth highest among all clubs in the world.

They have become expert in a particular part of the market, investing significantly in young players, and then developing them quickly, before delivering them to football’s summit. Hugo Ekitike recently moved to Liverpool for €85m (£75m; $98m). Omar Marmoush joined Manchester City for €75m (£66m; $87m) last January. In the summer of 2023, Randal Kolo Muani was signed by Paris Saint-Germain for €95m (£84m; $110m).

Combined, those players cost €30m (£26.5m; $35m). Collectively, they were sold for €255m (£225m; $295m).

“We should start at the beginning,” Kroesche says.

“At first, you have to define a philosophy — how do you want to actually play football. If you don’t have a clear philosophy, then you can’t define which profiles you need to play your football and you will never be able to scout and sign well.

“So, I think the most important thing in squad planning and in recruiting players is to have that clear idea, both of what you’re trying to do and what you need to do it.”

Financially, Frankfurt are part of the Bundesliga’s upper middle class. Their annual wage bill is roughly a third of Bayern Munich’s and half of Borussia Dortmund’s, and around 30 per cent lower than RB Leipzig and Leverkusen. Last season’s third-place finish, which brought Champions League qualification through the Bundesliga for the first time in their history, was a significant overachievement within which quality recruitment was a major factor.

But talent identification, explains Kroesche, is just the most visible part of the work the club does. And while he has become the face of this success, Frankfurt’s strength is collaboration between many different departments.

“The first thing is that we need to know what strengths the player has,” he explains.

What can they learn, what can’t they learn. For example, if a player is 190cm tall (6″2) and can run 36km/h, then you can’t teach that.

“Then, weaknesses. And when we’ve identified those, is it possible for us to improve those issues and make the player stronger? But that’s a balance. At our level, you will never find the perfect player. If you try hard enough, you will always find a reason not to sign a player.

“And that’s what I tell my scouts: guys, the most important thing is the strengths, but then be aware of weaknesses, because we might be able to work with that issue.

“Can our analysts develop him? Is there a potential new teammate in our squad who can accentuate one of his abilities? Can the way our team plays be helpful?

“That bit is always a fantasy. But then we speak about personality: does he fit in our group. Is he strong enough to handle the expectation? Does he have the right mindset to learn and to improve?”

Development is one priority. The speed of progress is another. Frankfurt’s preference is to sign players on five-year contracts, with the broad aim for a sale to happen after three years, before the final 24 months of the deal begins and that pressure affects valuation.

But Frankfurt have to compete during that period, too, and must benefit from the player’s performance long before year three. Evolution has to be dramatic rather than gentle, and that’s a multi-departmental process.

“We work on weaknesses every day, with maximum focus allowable on the individual player, not just the team,” says Kroesche. “That’s one of the ways we reduce development time and allow ourselves to compete.”

“But the foundation of development is the player being healthy and in the right condition to perform. If you want a player to develop, they have to be on the limit every day. One hundred per cent, always. Otherwise, there is no chance. There is no development.

“So, we invest a lot — a lot in the medical department, in nutrition experts, in sleep experts, because everybody in our organisation is involved in maintaining a player’s health and capacity to perform. When I first arrived, we had a lot of discussions about why it was necessary, and why we’re spending so much on the medical department and on nutritional experts.

“And because there was no quick return on the investment, there was always the question: ‘Markus, why are we doing this? Why do we have a sleep expert?’”

Frankfurt actually have two sleep experts now — one freelance and one full-time — but the fertility of the environment speaks for itself, as does the durability of the players within it.

Interestingly, Ekitike missed only two games through injury during his 18 months at the club. Marmoush’s only absences were through illness. Kolo Muani has already missed many more games for Tottenham (12) because of injury than he did in Frankfurt (2).

But sleep experts and nutritionists alone do not break transfer records. There are all sorts of other factors involved. Some planned. Some less so. And no player better exemplifies that than Omar Marmoush, who joined Frankfurt on a free transfer from Wolfsburg in 2023.

Back then, the Egyptian was a good but unremarkable Bundesliga player who — aged 23 — was still unable to command a full-time starting role, having only scored eight top-flight goals in his career.

“There was a big discussion before we signed Omar,” Kroesche remembers.

“He was a player with a lot of weaknesses and only two or three clear strengths. He was fast, he was strong, and he could finish well. He always worked incredibly hard. But when we signed him, the data showed that among all Bundesliga players, he gave away the ball the most (through a combination of unsuccessful touches, shots, and passes).

“He would get the ball, he would lose the ball and that was because his decision-making was not good.

“So, if we had only focused on the weaknesses, we would never have signed him. But we determined that the reason why his decision-making was not good was because he was not playing regularly enough.”

In his final Wolfsburg season, in 2022-23, Marmoush made more appearances from the substitutes’ bench (18) than in the starting lineup (15) and averaged just under 45 minutes per appearance.

“But strikers are different,” Kroesche says. “They need playing time, because they have to make more decisions than a defender. In every duel, they make a decision. They are proactive, rather than reactive. And if you don’t have the time to learn from your mistakes, you can’t improve.

“So, what could we do to change that: Individual video sessions, individual training focused on his choices with the ball and — of course — playing time.”

Luck was a factor, too. Had Kolo Muani not been sold without a replacement during the final day of the summer transfer window in 2023, Marmoush would not have had the same opportunities to play.

“That was a really difficult situation for (head coach) Dino Toppmoller,” Kroesche remembers, “because we went into the season without a striker. But that’s when Omar first earned his trust. If you look back at those first matches now, he was making a lot of the same mistakes that he had in Wolfsburg. But then he learned, he got more minutes and confidence, and his decisions got better and better.”

Within a year, Marmoush had become one of the most dangerous players in Germany. In January 2025, with the club reasoning that he had reached the apex of his value and could develop no further within the Bundesliga, he was sold to Manchester City.

It sounds like an easy decision, but it was freighted with consequences. Marmoush had scored 15 goals in 17 league games and was fundamental to Frankfurt’s chances of qualifying for the Champions League.

How, then, does Kroesche make a decision like that?

“We knew we were risking the Champions League. But money wise, it was absolutely the best situation we were going to achieve. Omar was playing incredibly well. Manchester City was under pressure and that was part of our negotiation, too. It was timing.

“And my opinion is that football is a team sport and no one player is responsible for winning and losing games. The group is what matters and if your squad is built well, then you can stay one year ahead and be as prepared as possible for those situations.

“This is one of the lessons we learned from selling Kolo Muani; we knew that one day we would need the abilities to replace Omar Marmoush. We needed to bring younger players in earlier, so that they could improve, learn our football, and one day be able to replace someone.

“That’s why we signed Jean-Matteo Bahoya a year earlier (from Angers for €8m [£7m, $9.25m]) than we intended. His abilities were clear and we looked at him and thought ‘OK, in one, maybe one-and-a-half years, he could have some of what we need to replace Omar.’

“That’s how we need to think. There are times when you have to sign players from the outside, but we need to prepare our squad with the anticipation that people will leave — but that when they do, that will create opportunities for others to grow.

“With his speed and one-on-one ability, Bahoya replaced part of what Marmoush had given us. But it also allowed Hugo Ekitike to grow. Before he left, Omar was the key player and he used all the attacking space.

“When we sold him, Ekitike grew into those areas and became the key player himself.

“We sold Kolo Muani. Omar got the playing time. That’s the reason he plays for Manchester City. But Hugo is at Liverpool now because we sold Omar in the winter.

“Sometimes it’s like this. Every situation impacts a squad differently. But if you balance your squad well, give the players your trust, then you can have the courage to let them go.”

The timing of those decisions is delicate, even when Champions League qualification and sporting objectives are not in play. Just as selling a player to a major Premier League team serves as a compelling case study for future talent, denying someone a dream move can show a club to be obstructive.

Mapping futures and giving those assurances is part of Kroesche’s job, too.

“When we first meet with a player and try to convince him to join us, we explain our ideas and how we see him. There’s a presentation within that meeting where we talk about his strengths and weaknesses, and what we are going to do to improve him — what coaches and methods we are going to use, for example. We also talk about how we see the player relative to the rest of the squad. So, we explain his role at the club and what we hope he will be Year One, Year Two and so on.

“But the last thing is that I promise a player that if they develop faster than we do as a club and we get our expectation in terms of a transfer fee, then I’ll let them go. I won’t worry about a few million Euros. If it’s the right moment, and it works for everyone, we will find a solution.

“It’s really important to stick to that, because that’s about credibility and credibility is the currency of my job.”

There are more of these challenges on the horizon. Frankfurt have high hopes for midfielder Hugo Larsson and Nathaniel Brown, the precocious full-back who has recently been capped by the Germany national team. Can Uzun, their superbly gifted Turkish playmaker, will also become the subject of intense transfer interest, as he seems on the steps to stardom.

So, as ever, Markus Kroesche and Eintracht Frankfurt will have decisions to make. But the smart money is on them getting those right.