Benjamin Henrichs is enjoying a breakthrough period of his career, both at club level and internationally. The 19 year old has pushed himself through to become important for Bayer Leverkusen, a club he’s been with since he was seven years old.
Performances at club level have caught the eye of Germany manager Joachim Low, who has called Henrichs up to the national squad for a friendly against Italy and a World Cup Qualifier against Italy.
Henrichs’ rise over the past year has also caught the eye of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea, according to Germany’s SportBild. Henrichs has been speaking to the German magazine about interest from other clubs, and said: “After a national game in September 2015 with the German U19s in England, English clubs were interested.”
SportBild then named those English clubs as Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea. All three are known to heavily scout youngsters around Europe and beyond, so they probably didn’t need Henrichs to play a match in England to find out about him.
Jose Mourinho has ramped up the scouting since moving to Manchester United, am Old Trafford process that appears to have started with David Moyes. Chelsea’s Michael Emenalo has for years been looking to recruit the best youngsters, and at Manchester City they started doing the same prior to Pep Guardiola’s arrival.
Henrichs is both footed and can play either at right or left back, it’s no surprise he’s interesting other clubs. SportBild don’t explain what happened with the interest from the Manchester clubs and Chelsea, but if they were interested in September 2015, then given he’s progressed since, there’s possibly even more interest now.
Mourinho especially may have his attention spiked. Matteo Darmian has been ostracised for much of the season, and if the Luke Shaw fall out is terminal, Henrichs is certainly a reasonable option.
