There’s something in the water in Frankfurt. Maybe it’s the Main River’s mineral makeup, maybe it’s a Teutonic potion stirred up in the Commerzbank cauldron.
Whatever the case, Eintracht Frankfurt have carved out an unlikely niche as European football’s great striker refinery — a club where forwards arrive anonymous and leave as global sensations, only to crash and burn elsewhere.
Hugo Ekitike, the latest golden goose to flutter out of Deutsche Bank Park and into an elite-level pressure cooker, has just made a £79 million leap to Liverpool.
It’s a staggering fee for a 23-year-old French forward who has never been capped. An astronomical payout for a player who finished his breakout campaign in May. And if history has anything to say about it, it’s also deeply concerning.
Let’s get something straight — Frankfurt don’t sell players. They cash in. And their track record reads like a cautionary tale for top clubs drunk on highlights reels and inflated Transfermarkt valuations.
The Pattern: Great in Frankfurt, Ghosts Elsewhere
Ekitike joins a high-profile hit list. Luka Jovic, Sebastian Haller, Randal Kolo Muani, and Omar Marmoush all left Frankfurt trailing fire and big numbers. What followed was — in most cases — a gut-punch of disappointment.
Luka Jovic: From Predator to Passenger
Jovic’s 2018/19 season was liquid gold. Twenty-seven goals, half a dozen assists, and a fearless knack for ripping open Bundesliga defences. Real Madrid came sniffing, €63 million in hand and took the Serbian to Spain.
Jovic flopped spectacularly at the Bernabéu, however. Injuries, inconsistency, and a complete absence of trust from Zidane buried him under the galáctico machine.
Two goals in two years, a few loans, and whispers of a return to Frankfurt, like a child sheepishly coming home after torching his college dorm. Now aged 27, Jovic is a free agent having been released by an unimpressed AC Milan.
Sebastian Haller: The West Ham Misadventure
West Ham broke their transfer record to bring Haller in for €50 million in 2019. The Ivorian had been electric alongside Jovic in Frankfurt — all muscle, menace, and link-up play so slick it should’ve come with a NSFW warning.
But Haller fizzled in East London. His heavy touch and languid style clashed with the Premier League’s frantic rhythm. He managed ten league goals in two seasons.
A cut-price move to Ajax followed in January 2021 — back outside the pressure cooker — and boom, he exploded again and earned a move back to Germany, this time to Dortmund.
Haller couldn’t recapture his previous Bundesliga form however, and was edged out to the periphery of the first team. He was later farmed out on loan to Leganes in Spain and FC Utrecht in the Netherlands, where his output was uninspiring.
Randal Kolo Muani: Parisian Panic
Perhaps the most glaring red flag of the lot is Randal Kolo Muani. Frankfurt picked him up on a free in 2022 after the forward showed promise at Nantes and performed a spectacular “pump and dump”, flipping their asset after just one year.
PSG coughed up €95 million – yes NINETY-FIVE MILLION – to sign Kolo Muani, who (like his compatriot Etikite) had scored just 15 Bundesliga goals during the previous campaign.
Muani, once devastating in transition and elegant on the ball, has flailed under the Parisians’ microscopic gaze. Between accusations of mental fragility, public criticism, and forgettable performances, he’s a shadow of the chaos-wreaker who once terrorised Bundesliga backlines.
The whispers grew louder. “Not everyone can handle the pressure,” his former Frankfurt coach said. A polite way of saying: this kid folded like a travel map. Kolo Muani is still on PSG’s books, but he is on the chopping block this summer.
Omar Marmoush: The Next in Line?
Omar Marmoush, signed on a free transfer from Wolfsburg in 2023 and sold to Man City for €75m in January 2025, is the latest Frankfurt forward to join the churn.
His first half season in the Premier League had moments of promise, not least of all his thunderous goal from distance against Bournemouth, however, in City’s tougher assignments, Marmoush tended to go missing.
Starts against sides like Chelsea, Arsenal, Real Madrid (UCL) and Liverpool yielded nothing for Marmoush. You’d expect a €75m-rated attacker to have made more of an impact when it mattered most.
Etikite: The Newest Passenger on the Frankfurt Hype Train
When PSG offloaded Ekitike after a muted stint in the French capital, Frankfurt swooped in with their usual alchemy. First came a loan, then came a buy at a knockdown price of €16.5m in 2024.
One year, 15 goals, eight assists, and a tactical role that accentuated his speed, spatial awareness, and predatory instincts. Classic Frankfurt — play to the player’s strengths, build confidence, inflate value.
Liverpool, who have been spending ambitiously this summer – pounced, dazzled by the metrics and simmering potential. But might they have walked into a beautifully laid trap?
“It happened to everyone else, but we’re too smart. It won’t happen to us.”
This isn’t just about Ekitike’s quality. He is talented. Fluid in movement, clever with positioning, and ruthless when in rhythm. But there’s an elephant in the room the size of a Jovic-shaped regret.
The Frankfurt Curse: Coincidence or Craft?
How many times does it need to happen before we stop calling it coincidence?
Frankfurt aren’t just lucky. They’re brilliantly Machiavellian. Their recruitment is driven by analytics, psychology, and tactical systems that supercharge specific player types.
Their sales are timed to perfection — often at peak value, just before the regression curve dips and the ruse is uncovered.
This is the footballing equivalent of a Silicon Valley pump-and-dump. Buy undervalued assets, run them through a tailor-made system, then flip to a wide-eyed buyer for a markup that would make Jeff Bezos blush.
Liverpool, for all their sophistication, have bet big on breaking this cycle. They’ve made Ekitike one of the most expensive strikers in Premier League history. But are they buying the player, or the Frankfurt illusion?
Can Ekitike Buck the Trend?
There is, of course, the counter-argument. Ekitike may benefit from Liverpool’s improved midfield, a slower build-up system under new management, and support from some world-class teammates.
He also brings something different — he’s younger than Jovic was, more versatile than Haller, and perhaps mentally tougher than Kolo Muani. By all accounts, he left Frankfurt on good terms and without the diva baggage that so often accompanies high-fee moves.
For their part, Liverpool shop with precision in general and have successfully recruited from the Bundesliga before.
Still, the odds are steep. Because no matter how good Ekitike might be, he’s carrying the weight of a legacy — one that says Frankfurt strikers shine like stars at home but flicker out under foreign skies.
The Verdict: Buyer Beware
Liverpool may have just paid a king’s ransom for a diamond mined in Frankfurt’s carefully curated cavern. But history suggests this gem could be more zirconia than zircon.
Frankfurt, meanwhile, march on — grinning, bank accounts swollen, scouting network humming.
Will Ekitike be just another chapter in Frankfurt’s striker saga — the latest in a long con of perfectly timed exits and plummeting value elsewhere?
Or is he the one to finally break the curse?
