By Rich

Amin Younes is a 28-year-old winger for Eintracht Frankfurt. Younes was born on August 6, 1993 in Düsseldorf, Germany, and spent his youth career playing for SG Unterrath from 1997 to 2000 before joining Borussia Mönchengladbach’s youth side at the age of 8 in 2000. His senior career continued at Gladbach, where he played until 2015, making 63 appearances for the senior and reserve teams. He played the 2014-15 season on loan to 1. FC Kaiserslautern, and then joined Ajax, where he remained until 2018. He then moved to Italian side Napoli on a free transfer in 2018, and has been on loan to Frankfurt since 2020. Younes has also made 53 appearances for Germany’s U16, U17, U18, U19, U20, U21, and senior squads since 2008, scoring 13 goals.

By Rich

Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski set a new Bundesliga goal record on Friday in a 4:0 shutout of visitors VfL Wolfsburg. Thomas Müller, in his 400th Bundesliga appearance, opened the scoring just 7 minutes in, and then assisted on the next goal from Dayot Upamecano in the 57th minute. Just 2 minutes after that, Leroy Sane found the net off an assist from Serge Gnabry, and the match’s final goal, in the 87th minute, came from Lewandowski off an assist from Jamal Musiala. The goal was Lewandowski’s 43rd in the calendar year. Across his 400 Bundesliga appearances, Müller has scored 133 goals and assisted in 194 more. Bayern have now scored at least 1 goal in 64 consecutive Bundesliga matches, and are just 1 match shy of the record of 65. While Bayern have now begun securing their spot at the top of the table, Wolfsburg have obtained just 1 point from their last 6 league games, the lowest in the division. One match to watch on Saturday will be the derby between hosts Eintracht Frankfurt and visitors 1. FSV Mainz 05. The teams are even on points in the table, with 24 each. Frankfurt are coming off consecutive come-from-behind victories over Leverkusen and Gladbach and have won 5 of their last 6 Bundesliga fixtures. Mainz are having a stellar season so far with so many points after just 16 matches, especially given that they had won just 1 game at this same time last season. They are coming into this match off a 4:0 victory at home over Hertha Berlin, and lost the preceding matchday by just 1 goal against Bayern. Also on Saturday, Hertha will host Borussia Dortmund and will try to prevent Erling Haaland from scoring 54 goals in 54 Bundesliga matches so far. Hertha’s unbeaten streak under new head coach Tayfun Korkut was ended earlier in the week by Mainz, and the club is only 1 point clear of the relegation play-off spot. Hertha have, however, won 11 of their 18 points this season at home. For their part, Dortmund have won 32 of their 68 Bundesliga meetings with Hertha, including each of the last 5 Dortmund are also unbeaten in their last 4 league visits to the Olympiastadion. Looking ahead to Sunday, Freiburg will host Leverkusen as both teams vie for the top berths going into the winter break. The 2 clubs are separated by just 2 points, and the match will decide whether Leverkusen can hold on to their 3rd-place berth or Freiburg can leapfrog them. Competition will resume after the winter break on Friday, January 7th when Bayern host Gladbach.