A champion player from last year’s FC Schalke 04 U17 team has moved abroad. He joins the U19 team of SSC Napoli.

Noah Mutanda celebrated the German U17 championship with FC Schalke 04 last season, but then the club and player parted ways. Now the 17-year-old midfielder has found a new club: He will now play for the U19s of the Italian top club SSC Napoli. According to media reports from Italy, Mutanda has already been training with the Neapolitans in recent weeks. Now he is a permanent member of coach Nicolo Frustalupi’s squad.

Mutanda played four years in the Schalker Knappenschmiede. He had come to Gelsenkirchen from Göttingen in 2018. He made a total of 17 appearances for the B Juniors. One in particular will certainly have remained in his memory.

In the semi-final second leg of the championship finals, his shot resulted in a 3:1 final score, even though Niklas Dörr still deflected the ball and was counted as the official scorer. However, Mutanda was injured only a short time later and therefore missed the final (4:3 n E. against VfB Stuttgart). In the regular season, Mutanda mostly came off the bench, being part of the starting eleven only twice in the 17 league games.

Schalke: Seven U17 champions have left

Now he is apparently to help stabilise Napoli after a poor start to the season. The club are 15th in the table in the top youth league Primavera after picking up just three points from their first five games.

Mutanda is one of seven players from Schalke’s U17 championship squad who left S04 in the summer. Alongside him are Julius Rüger (SC Verl), Batuhan Yavuz (MSV Duisburg), Alihan Adigüzel (Greuther Fürth), Vincent Burlet (LOSC Lille), Lein Tairi (VfB Hilden) and Dorian Nacu (unknown).