“Hertha and Berlin are my home,” said new signing Jessic Ngankam in his first interview with EintrachtTV. “It’s where I grew up and learned to play football. I'm very grateful for that.” Ngankam makes no secret of his love for his home city – which makes his decision to move to Frankfurt all the more remarkable.
Indeed, Ngankam, who has Cameroonian ancestry, has spent almost his entire life in Berlin. He grew up in the suburb of Spandau and played for Reinickendorfer Füchsen early on before joining the Hertha youth academy at the age of six in summer 2006.
House in Douala, youth project in Berlin
He had his first brief taste of the big time when he met former Hertha star Marcelinho during a scouting day at the age of five. The photo of the pair of them still hangs in Ngankam’s house today.
In 2021, the 22-year-old also had a house built for his parents in Douala, the Cameroonian metropolis where his uncles, aunts and cousins live. It was the fulfilment of a promise Ngankam had made five years previously in return for their support in helping him become a professional footballer. He has also been involved in the social youth project MitternachtsSport e.V for a long time.
The 1.84-metre attacker, who already knows Faride Alidou and Ansgar Knauff from his time in the Germany youth teams, has long been the subject of rave reviews from Berlin newspapers. “Fighting spirit, physicality and commitment,” wrote the Berliner Zeitung, while the Tagesspiegel hailed the new Eintracht No.18’s “power, hard-work and ability to trouble any opponent”. Ngankam himself describes his qualities as “a versatile forward who can go deep, take on opponents, hold up the ball and score goals.”
Those very characteristics even inspired Berlin hip-hop band Etekogang to write the song ‘Jessic Ngankam’, which features the following lyric: “I can dribble my way through like Kingsley Coman, I score goals like Jessic Ngankam.”
Awesome club, awesome stadium and awesome fans
Jessic Ngankam
Ngankam has demonstrated over the years that he is the kind of player who can make the difference in matches. He scored his first professional goal in his debut Bundesliga season on 4 October 2020, away to none other than Bayern Munich, while he netted the winner in a 2-1 victory at Schalke on 12 May 2021 that was vital in securing Hertha’s survival that year. Just two years earlier Ngankam had scored 25 goals to finish as top scorer in the Youth Bundesliga North/North-east division.
He now “can’t wait to meet the boys and play the first game,” highlighting the “awesome club, awesome stadium and awesome fans”. He also stressed that he “had some good conversations” with new head coach Dino Toppmöller: “He’s a good character, I like that. He’s an honourable person and that’s very important to me.”
It’s already looking like a match made in heaven. Welcome aboard, Jessic!
