Ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt’s UEFA Europa League quarter-final second leg against Tottenham Hotspur, we look at the rise of star striker Hugo Ekitiké.
Hype can build quickly in football.
A hot streak from a player can soon lead to links with the biggest clubs, which can lead to pressure and, ultimately, people concluding that the hype was misplaced.
There has been quite a bit of buzz around Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitiké this season, with eyes focused on north London last week as the Bundesliga side played out a 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur in the first leg of their UEFA Europa League quarter-final.
Ekitiké responded to the hype by picking the ball up on the left, driving inside and firing a shot from outside the box hard and low into the far corner of the net, to a seemingly collective reaction of “Blimey!” on social media.
Ekitiké cutting in and hitting the corner @Eintracht | #UEL pic.twitter.com/Ip1cZaDd29
— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) April 12, 2025It followed his impressive hat-trick in the recent France U21 game against England, and his generally solid performances in the Bundesliga. After his strike against Spurs, Ekitiké added a goal and assist in Eintracht’s 3-0 home win over Heidenheim on Sunday that cemented their place in the top four in Germany’s top flight, on course for Champions League qualification regardless of whether or not they win the Europa League.
At 22 years old, you would think this is simply the story of a young player on the up, but Ekitiké’s journey has not quite been that simple.
He came through the youth setup into senior football with hometown club Reims, breaking out as a teenager in 2021-22 with an impressive 10 goals and three assists in 24 Ligue 1 games (15 starts). That brought the attention of bigger clubs, with Ekitiké reportedly turning down a move to Newcastle United to sign for Paris Saint-Germain on a season-long loan in the summer of 2022.
Arriving in Paris as a young and relatively inexperienced striker into a squad that contained Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and Lionel Messi must have been exciting for Ekitiké, but it also inevitably meant he struggled slightly for minutes. He did still make 25 Ligue 1 appearances in 2022-23, though, 12 of which were starts, recording three goals and four assists.
Despite his loan move being made permanent and the exits of Neymar and Messi after that campaign, Ekitiké’s chances in the French capital almost entirely disappeared in 2023-24 after the arrivals of Ousmane Dembélé, Randal Kolo Muani and Gonçalo Ramos. The nine minutes he played as a sub in the opening-day draw with Lorient was the only game time Ekitiké saw in the first half of the campaign, eventually leading to a loan move to Eintracht Frankfurt in the January.
His decision to move to Paris had not gone according to plan, but in a new league, he had a chance for a fresh start, and he managed four goals and two assists in 14 Bundesliga games before the end of the season, only half of which had been starts.
Eintracht manager Dino Toppmöller put his full trust in the player after he was signed permanently from PSG last summer, though, which paid off handsomely. Ekitiké has 14 goals and five assists in 28 Bundesliga games this season (26 starts), with 21 goals and nine assists in all competitions.
Only three players have more than his 19 goal involvements in the Bundesliga, one of which is former teammate Omar Marmoush.
He struck up a potent partnership with Marmoush, though the Egyptian left Frankfurt for Manchester City in January. That had the potential to halt Ekitiké’s progress, with Marmoush having assisted five of the Frenchman’s 12 goals in the campaign to that point.
Prior to Marmoush’s departure, Ekitiké averaged 0.62 non-penalty goals per 90 minutes from 0.57 non-penalty expected goals (np xG), and 1.9 chances created. Since his strike partner’s exit, his np goals per 90 have dropped slightly to 0.53, though his np xG has gone up to 0.67, which is likely because Ekitiké is now the main man up front, so more chances are coming to him rather than being shared with Marmoush. That lack of a proper partner in attack has seen his chances created per 90 drop to 1.3, though.
Ekitiké has the highest xG (19.5) and np xG (17.1) in the Bundesliga this season. Apart from Borussia Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy (16.5), no other Bundesliga player is even within 5.5 np xG of Ekitiké.
Across Europe’s top five leagues, only Robert Lewandowski (21.0) and Erling Haaland (18.5) have more np xG than Ekitiké.
Despite a very decent return of 14 Bundesliga goals in his first full season in the competition, it could be argued that he should have scored more. Of players in Europe’s top five leagues, only Real Betis’ Abde Ezzalzouli has underperformed his total xG by a larger margin (-6.0 – 1 goal from 7.0 xG) than Ekitiké (-5.5). Even taking penalties away, he is underperforming his non-penalty xG by 4.1 (13 np goals from 17.1 np xG).
That could lead some to question his finishing ability. He has a 13.9% shot conversion rate in the Bundesliga, which only goes up to 16.7% in the Europa League.
However, as anyone who has seen even a little bit of football will know, a striker who misses a lot of chances is usually more cause for optimism than a striker who isn’t even getting the chances to miss in the first place. At 22 years old, Ekitiké has plenty of time to improve his finishing.
Comparisons have been made with Newcastle star Alexander Isak due to his height, slim frame and deft touch. When Isak was roughly the age Ekitiké is now, he was at Real Sociedad, and he scored just six goals from 32 games in La Liga in 2021-22 and had a shot conversion rate of just 8.2%. The Swede also scored two of his goals from the penalty spot, and so had just four non-penalty goals from 8.2 np xG, an underperformance of 4.2.
Isak has since developed into one of the best strikers in Europe, and this season has 20 Premier League goals with a shot conversion of a whopping 26.0%, and 18 np goals from 15.1 np xG, an overperformance of 3.0. This is not to say that Ekitiké will follow the same trajectory, but it is an example of why you shouldn’t compare a 22-year-old player to the finished article.
So, aside from goals, what sort of player is Ekitiké?
Despite standing at 6-foot-3 he’s not the most physical. Rather than grappling with defenders, Ekitiké would rather find space and make runs into the channels. He is fleet-footed and capable of leading the line, but he likes to drift wide or drop deep and link up with others. His best football has arguably come when playing with a strike partner, though, like Marmoush, while he also mostly played in a front two at Reims.
For a tall player, Ekitiké is not much of a menace in the air. Only one of his 21 goals this season has been from a header, having attempted 13 headed shots. He is, however, good with both feet, scoring six times with his weaker left foot.
As with many modern forwards, Ekitiké likes to create as well as score. Only seven players have created more open-play chances than his 39 in the Bundesliga this season.
He also likes to carry the ball with purpose. His 35 shot-ending carries are the most in the Bundesliga this season. In fact, not including Marmoush (30), no other player in Germany’s top flight has more than 25 (Jamal Musiala), while only three players have more than Ekitiké’s 15 carries ending with a chance being created.
Ekitiké has recorded 18 secondary chances created – providing the pass to the player who then creates a chance – and has four secondary assists (when the shot is scored), the joint most for Eintracht along with midfielder Farès Chaïbi.
Some of his creativity comes from his willingness to lay the ball off to a teammate rather than always taking it himself and heading for goal. It’s one of Ekitiké’s favourite options when playing with his back to goal, often cushioning to a teammate before making a run for either a return pass in behind or to create space for others. His 61 layoffs are the joint-10th most in the Bundesliga this season, with his 52 successful layoffs the joint-12th most.
Only five players have played a part in more open-play shot-ending sequences in the Bundesliga this season, all of whom play for either Bayern Munich or Bayer Leverkusen. He is above Harry Kane in this list despite having only played 18 more minutes than the Bayern striker.
He does his fair share of work out of possession too, with only 11 players in the Bundesliga having won possession in the opposition’s final third more often than Ekitiké (17), which is impressive given Eintracht aren’t a particularly high-pressing team. Only six Bundesliga sides have made fewer than their 189 high turnovers this season.
Ekitiké’s performance against Heidenheim at the weekend showed how involved he can be in key moments a game, with a secondary assist for the first goal when he fed Chaïbi down the left channel to cross to Jean-Mattéo Bahoya to score, an assist for the second when he got ahead of a defender to lay the ball off to Robin Koch to fire in, and a clever off-ball run to tap in the third from Nathaniel Brown’s cross.
He is still a little rough around the edges, which you’d expect for a 22-year-old. He can sometimes try flicks or passes that simply aren’t on when keeping it simple will do, but it feels as though the things he can improve on, such as finishing and decision-making, are things players generally do get better at with experience.
It is especially impressive that Ekitiké gets so many chances without ever coming across as a selfish player. Whether the time is right this summer for him to try again at another European giant is unclear, but he is certainly someone who should be on the radar of all of them.
Fire Eintracht to Europa League glory, and there will be little to stop this latest hype train.
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