\n<\/p>\n
Taufig Khalil became aware of Karl’s progress two years ago when his teenage son, then 15 like Karl, went to watch his friend play against a Bayern U17s side containing the winger.<\/p>\n
“When my son came home he said ‘Papa, it’s unbelievable. This guy, Lennart Karl, he scored five goals’,” Bayern Munich reporter Khalil told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty obvious that this kid had something really special.”<\/p>\n
Last season, Karl notched 34 goals and 11 assists in 31 games for Bayern and Germany’s U17 sides combined, earning him a surprise call-up to Vincent Kompany’s squad for the Club World Cup.<\/p>\n
Such ruthless finishing probably could have been predicted.<\/p>\n
In 2018, a 10-year-old Karl went viral for an audacious goal he scored while playing for Eintracht Frankfurt’s U11s in a sports hall.<\/p>\n
With his back to goal, Karl controlled an aerial ball with a back heel before swivelling and rifling a left-footed volley into the top corner.<\/p>\n
Karl won Eintracht’s academy goal of the year award, and was presented with a custom pair of Nike boots at a Bundesliga match by the club’s then president Peter Fischer and then sporting director Fredi Bobic.<\/p>\n
Born 45 minutes from Frankfurt am Main in the north-west Bavarian town of Frammersbach, Karl joined Eintracht’s academy in 2017 from his first club Viktoria Aschaffenburg.<\/p>\n
Eintracht saw huge potential in Karl, but then so did Bayern.<\/p>\n
It remains a sore point at Eintracht that, after relations between Karl’s parents and the club took a turn, he briefly rejoined Aschaffenburg before Bayern recruited him aged 14 in 2022.<\/p>\n
According to SportBild, external<\/span><\/a>, Germany’s most successful club topped up the nominal compensation fee owed for a junior player to 35,000 euros, divided between his two former teams.<\/p>\n