The Prince of Egypt finds his throne in Frankfurt
Omar Marmoush has been a revelation in the Bundesliga.
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“He’s responsible for producing danger up front,” Eintracht Frankfurt coach Dino Toppmoller said after his side’s comfortable 4-2 win over Holstein Kiel at the end of September.
He was talking, of course, about the Bundesliga’s second-highest scorer — maybe its second-best player too, on form — and certainly, as Toppmoller insists, its most dangerous.
He was talking about Frankfurt’s new star, the Prince of Egypt now reborn on German soil: Omar Marmoush.
Against Kiel, Marmoush had scored two and assisted two more, continuing a run of what would go on to be eight consecutive games with direct goal contributions, including two goals — one of them an injury-time equaliser — and an assist against league leaders Bayern Munich.
In just nine Bundesliga matches, he’s found the net ten times — the first player in Frankfurt’s history to ever do so. No player bar Harry Kane has scored more. At the time of writing, he has already scored 12 and assisted nine goals inside only 14 club matches in all competitions this season.
These aren’t just numbers on a page; they chart a rise, a transformation from potential to reality.
More than that, Marmoush has orchestrated and elevated his team-mates in a way few would have anticipated. Owing a great deal to his performances, Frankfurt sit third in the table, only six points behind Bayern; they are not just holding their own but attacking with intent.
But it was never going to be easy. For a player who seemed so full of promise, yet with a career path that, until recently, was coloured with instability and inconsistency, the expectations upon Marmoush’s arrival at Frankfurt were grounded.
This was no proven star marching onto the pitch, claiming it as his own. No, this was a man shaped by the struggles of nearly making it, but not quite; by talent overflowing, but remaining unrefined. He had stints at Wolfsburg and Stuttgart where he was more embers than fire, a spark that was bright, but not quite lasting.
Now, in his second season at the Waldstadion, he is blazing.
So how, exactly, does one defend Marmoush? Marcel Rapp, coach of the Holstein Kiel team that Marmoush near-singlehandedly demolished, tried to describe the difficulty of it all: “It’s not easy to just say, ‘We’ll defend him.’ Should we double-team him? Also not so simple.”
“A good player always finds the spaces,” Rapp said. But Marmoush isn’t merely good. He’s elusive, uncatchable at times, with a knack for finding spaces and exploiting them that just seems instinctual. It’s his unpredictability that haunts defenders, that relentless hunt for the moment that tips the balance of a match.
Marmoush is showing that there’s more than just one of these moments, though. Time and again, he’s had many where a single flick, a feint, a pass, a strike spins the ordinary into the magical. Moments where his desire sharpens into clarity, creating a flash of brilliance that lingers long and deep into the story of Frankfurt’s season.
After his last-minute heroics earned a well-deserved point against Bayern, Vincent Kompany, too, was impressed.
“Marmoush is a player who’s only going to get better with time. Sometimes he looks quite relaxed, then when he gets going, he’s really fast.”
-Vincent Kompany
Relaxed in his demeanour, perhaps, but not in his mind. Watching Marmoush in action, there is something else — a hunger, almost visceral. He plays as though he’s on borrowed time, aware that each goal brings him closer to what he’s fought for. There’s a rawness to his game, a desire to break from what he once was to chase what he knows he can become.
Against Bayern, it was on full display. His run into space for the first goal, knowing exactly how to outpace Raphael Guerreiro and then outsmart Manuel Neuer. His strength to hold off Dayot Upamecano and slip in his strike partner, Hugo Ekitike for the second. And his awareness to latch onto the loose ball and open the angle across goal for the third.
He moves like a player who has something to prove, but also as if he’s at peace with himself — as if he’s found his place and his purpose.
Marmoush has mainly started in a front two this season in Frankfurt’s dynamic 4-4-2 shape, where he is thriving alongside Ekitike. The duo operate as if they were born to play together, exploding into space, pulling defenders just far enough apart to serve each other chance after chance on a silver platter.
They’ve formed a strike partnership of deadly precision, and their chemistry is perhaps the lifeblood of this Frankfurt team. Marmoush and Ekitike have combined for 22 goal contributions so far, making them far and away the Bundesliga’s most lethal duo, with much more to come.
But it is Marmoush’s versatility, his intelligence, that has truly taken his game to another level. He can play both centrally as a No. 9 or wider as an inside forward coming in off the left, using his superior pace, positional awareness, and clinical shooting to good effect. His transition into not just a high-volume shooter, but a strikingly intelligent player has been clear.
He is a strong dribbler with impeccable ball control, reminiscent of an early-stage Karim Benzema, though perhaps not as technically gifted or nuanced in his ability as the sole striker.
His movement and instincts, though, are top-drawer, and each time he takes the field, there’s a sense that he’s adding yet another layer to his arsenal.
As Toppmoller praises, Marmoush is Eintracht’s danger, their spark, their edge, the threat that endures every time the ball finds his feet. For the Egyptian, each run is a chance, each shot a statement, and each feint a new route to goal. He is the pivot between hope and goal; the player who, in each match and each movement, is as much the start as he is the finish.
Of course, there are already rumours of Marmoush leaving at the end of the season, or possibly even earlier. Many reports suggest that Bayern are keen on securing his signature, while the enticing possibility of joining (or replacing) fellow Egyptian Mohamed Salah at Liverpool is also on the cards.
And ultimately, that’s football, where the price of success does not land easy, especially for a club at Eintracht’s level in the pecking order.
But here, now, he belongs to Frankfurt, and Frankfurt belongs to him. And if this is to be a single, dazzling season — if it’s to be his final act here — then what a season it will be.