July 31 – An 18-year-old asylum seeker from Gambia is the talk of German football after scoring four times in his first match as a second-half substitute for Werder Bremen.
With Germany’s mounting refugee crisis splitting public opinion and at times getting violent, Ousman Manneh, who fled from Gambia on his own in 2014, has added an unusual twist to the debate with his special performance in a 7-0 pre-season win over SV Wilhelmshaven.
“This is where I want to be,” Manneh told Bremen’s local newspaper, Kreiszeitung, referring to Germany’s top-flight Bundesliga. “I’m working hard for this. If I get a chance, I’ll go for it.”
Manneh has declined to reveal details about how he got to Germany but turned 18 in March a day after signing a contract with Werder Bremen’s youth team.
“If someone had told me before this would have happened, I wouldn’t have believe them,” Manneh said of his four goals that came in a 15-minute span after he was given his chance on the hour mark.
“He lives for soccer,” Werder Bremen assistant coach Torsten Frings told the newspaper Bild. “He should try to forget everything else that’s gone on around him.”
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