Last Friday, Nnamdi Collins made his Bundesliga debut for Eintracht Frankfurt. The 20-year-old can also look forward to playing for Stuttgart.

Early on in his youth, Nnamdi Collins was regarded as one of the greatest German defensive talents of his age group. The Düsseldorf native, who transferred from Fortuna to BVB’s youth team in 2016, played for all of the junior national teams from the U15s onwards and rose through the ranks at Dortmund to become the U19 captain.

However, the talent was not to make the breakthrough to the pros in Dortmund. The central defender, who now plays for the German U20 team, only made eight appearances in the third division. He therefore decided to try again and joined Eintracht Frankfurt last summer.

There, too, Collins initially had to be content with appearances for the second team in the Regionalliga Südwest. In February, on match day 21, the 20-year-old was then on the bench against VfL Bochum. This was followed by two more squad nominations against Dortmund (matchday 26) and Union Berlin (matchday 27) and then his professional debut last Friday – right from the start.

Short-lived starting eleven appearance

Against Werder Bremen (1:1), Eintracht coach Dino Toppmöller had to contend with a number of absentees. As Sebastian Rode and Ellyes Skhiri had to miss out through injury at short notice and the recently recovered Hugo Larsson was not yet fit to start, central defender Tuta moved into the starting six. Toppmöller surprisingly filled the vacant place in the back three with Collins. The youngster himself only found out about it on the morning of the matchday. “It happened quite quickly,” he explained in an interview with “EintrachtTV”.

“I can’t put it into words. I’ve been working towards this moment for so long and now I’ve finally got the chance,” said Collins proudly, speaking of an “incredible feeling”.

After 65 minutes, the defender’s working day was over at 0:1, but Collins was still able to do some self-promotion. He was not only the second-fastest Frankfurt player behind Ansgar Knauff, but also impressed with three clearances and eight passes into the attacking third – the second-best figures for the SGE.

Praise from the coach – Collins “an option” again next week

In a turbulent final phase, in addition to a sending-off in Bremen and the Frankfurt equalizer, there was also a red card for Tuta, who had moved into midfield and whose position Collins had taken.

So even if Ellyes Skhiri returns next week, the youngster can certainly hope to make another appearance when the Adler visit Stuttgart. Coach Toppmöller looked ahead: “Nnamdi Collins made a decent Bundesliga debut, especially at home in front of 58,000 fans. That’s why he’s also an option to replace Tuta in that position. “