The circumstances under which coach Antonio Di Salvo is preparing his U-21 national team for the European Championship in the summer are far from optimal. Five of the football players who are to be part of the squad for the tournament are currently allowed to make their first experiences in the senior national team, others are injured, in total Di Salvo was missing eleven players in the 2-2 draw against Japan's youth team, who are firmly scheduled for the European Championship.

And yet the more than 6000 spectators in the Frankfurt stadium on the Bornheimer Hang got to see a very entertaining football game on Friday, in the course of which one has made a lot of advertising on his own behalf: the debutant Jessic Ngankam. A foul on the Hertha BSC attacker led to a penalty for Germany, which Ngankam himself converted to make it 1-0.

"He kept the balls," said Di Salvo afterwards about the most present player of the game, "he threw himself into every tackle, scored the goal, and had two more opportunities in the second half where you could see that he is able to assert himself with his back to the goal in the sixteen."

A big compliment from the coach

That was great praise, which was perhaps also so enthusiastic because Ngankam is a guy who fits pretty perfectly with the image of the future senior national player that those responsible at the German Football Association have in mind. Not only because of his footballing qualities.

Born in Berlin, Ngankam was trained in the youth of Hertha BSC, but during this time he was not honed into one of those somewhat uniform footballers who work tactically and technically perfectly, but who lose energy as soon as they encounter resistance. "I just went out on the pitch and did what I always do: play like playing on the football pitch," Ngankam said on Friday night.

The game against the Japanese took place on an unfortunate pitch. The ball bumped and jumped, Bundesliga football players are hardly confronted with such conditions anymore, and some lose interest under such circumstances. But Ngankam fought and ploughed, he coped much better with the adversity than, for example, Eintracht Frankfurt's Faride Alidou. This form of humble determination is to be promoted not least by the DFB sports director Rudi Völler, who likes to revel in old times.

Force, power, straightness

And Ngankam is also another one who demands responsibility: When Hertha BSC was awarded a penalty against Mainz 05 two weeks ago, the 22-year-old professional took the ball, although the experienced Florian Niederlechner would have been ready – and scored to make it 1-0. The young striker has what his team needs in the fight against relegation: "this power, this power, this straightforwardness," enthused coach Sandro Schwarz afterwards about the player, who played a total of 500 minutes in ten games for Hertha this season and scored two goals. That is a considerable rate.

In the senior national team, the growing importance of Niklas Füllkrug embodies the rediscovered appreciation for a less delicate, but devoted and determined style of play. "He played a good game," said national coach Hansi Flick, who had watched the game of the youth team together with Völler, about Ngankam. "We're glad we have guys like him. That's what we're looking for."

Perhaps this striker Flick would have been noticed earlier, but former Hertha coach Pal Dardai promoted other talents more, and Ngankam has been repeatedly thrown back by injuries over the past three years, including a cruciate ligament rupture, which put him out of action for almost ten months.

Now he was allowed to make his debut in the U 21, which was facilitated by the fact that other candidates for the position at the top were missing because they had been invited to the A-Team. Mergim Berisha and Kevin Schade were allowed to play their first senior internationals on Saturday in a 2-0 win against Peru, both will probably be at the European Championships in Georgia and Romania. But Ngankam also has a good chance. In the friendly match in Romania on Tuesday evening (18 p.m. on ProSiebenMaxx) he can show that he can also cope well with the conditions on the Black Sea.