“I don’t want to play against you any more!” Ibrahim Maza is on his way to becoming a world star thanks to an unbeatable combination

Ibrahim Maza has become one of the Bundesliga's best footballers through pure talent and remarkable resilience. He has big dreams for the future.

"I feel good with the ball; we're good friends. It's a great feeling to have a ball at my feet. I try to be at one with the ball," Ibrahim Maza said recently in an RTL interview. Anyone who has seen him play would believe every word.

A few days earlier, in Bayer Leverkusen's Bundesliga match against Stuttgart (2-4) on Halloween, the playmaker seemed to take on half the VfB side. He worked his way through the tightest of spaces, prompting DAZN commentator Jan Platte to reach for a comparison with the very best: "If Ronaldinho had been in the stadium, he would have come down and given him his crown. That was unbelievable."

From Berlin's street football pitches to the Bundesliga, Maza has kept the flair that makes him one of the league's most exciting players. Paris Saint-Germain apparently see it too: the Champions League winners are reportedly determined to sign the 20-year-old.

Technique and love of the ball alone have not brought Maza this far at such a young age. His willingness to fight sets him apart. "An artist who doesn't work isn't worth all that much on the pitch," Maza himself says.

That attitude may owe something to a warning from Hertha icon Pal Dardai, who coached him in the capital club's under-16s. Dardai's message to Maza was simple: You have a gift from God; don't squander it!

"'If you carry on being this lazy, you won't achieve anything,'" Dardai warned Maza, the Hungarian revealed. Maza had joined Hertha at the age of ten, but for a long time few regarded him as one of the brightest prospects in the club's youth ranks. "He didn't come into the under-17s as the sought-after top talent," Oliver Reiß, now Manchester City's under-21 coach and formerly Maza's coach in his second year at under-17 level at Hertha, recalled on the Denkfabrik Nachwuchsfußball podcast.

Early in that under-17 year, Reiß and his then assistant coach Oliver Schröder spotted something different. "We noticed that he somehow did different things with the ball," Reiß said. Maza was not among the players he felt he had to pick for the most important matches, "but it became clear relatively early on that he had something special."

During his first six months with the under-17s, Maza was not a regular and repeatedly came on as a substitute. Bence Dardai (now at VfL Wolfsburg) and Noel Aseko (now at Eintracht Frankfurt) drew considerably more attention in that team. Maza did not become a regular starter until the second half of his under-17 year, but Reiß had spotted another quality alongside his talent on the ball, one probably even more important to his development.

"What we really liked about him was that he managed to combine being a good footballer with having that resilience. I had dozens of players who were incredibly good and who, when they were in their flow, made you think: 'If he doesn't make it ...' But when things weren't going well, they just let the game happen to them," Reiß explained. Maza, by contrast, was always "a long way from just letting the game happen to him", even in the face of the greatest adversity.

Whatever the setback, Maza fought back. "I made my biggest step forward under him," he said in a 2024 interview on Hertha's website, stressing the importance of his time under Reiß. His mentor also moved up to the under-19s with him. There, Maza immediately became a regular starter and soon emerged as the much-hyped megatalent from Hertha's academy after all.

Just over a year and a half after struggling to find his place in the under-17 team, Maza made his Bundesliga debut in April 2023 at the age of 17, coming on as a substitute in a 2-0 defeat by Bayern Munich. Hertha were relegated shortly afterwards. He would probably have earned a place in their second-division team much sooner, but a meniscus injury initially kept him out for a long time.

After fighting his way back and spending a year and a half as an established member of Hertha's first-team squad, Maza took the next step in 2025, answering Leverkusen's call to the Bundesliga. Bayer paid €12 million for him and expected the then 19-year-old to help replace Florian Wirtz, who had left for Liverpool FC. It was a lot to ask of a player so young, but Maza has handled the pressure with remarkable maturity.

"I try never to let outside pressure get to me. Whether people say I have to do this now or should have done this or that," he said confidently on RTL. "I'm very aware myself of what I have to do on the pitch, and I already put a certain amount of pressure on myself, but it's still within reasonable bounds."

Following a brief settling-in period, Maza's first year in Leverkusen showed his mental strength as well as his footballing ability. He became one of the key players in the Bundesliga and Champions League and earned a nomination for the Kopa Trophy for his performances in 2025/26. The award, presented each year as part of the Ballon d'Or ceremony, honours the world's best under-21 player. Lionel Messi has a vote and included Maza alongside Barcelona stars Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi in his top three.

"To be chosen by Lionel Messi is, of course, a great honour. It gives you an extra dose of motivation when someone like Messi says you've got something," Maza said happily. Asked whether he wanted to win the Ballon d'Or one day, he replied boldly: "It's a dream of mine. It always has been."

Now in his second season with Leverkusen, Maza has made a strong start. He is the defining figure in Bayer's midfield and has eight goal contributions in 14 appearances so far (four goals, four assists). To fulfil his Ballon d'Or dream, though, he cannot stay at Leverkusen forever.

His contract runs until 2030, but speculation about a multimillion-euro move to one of Europe's biggest clubs is growing. For several weeks, media reports have suggested that PSG, above all, are pursuing the midfield gem. The Parisians apparently rate Maza as highly as Messi does, and as Deniz Undav does.

"Go to Paris, mate, I don't want to play against you any more!" the VfB Stuttgart and Germany striker called out to Maza after the match against Leverkusen at the end of October, according to Bild. Undav later praised him on Sky: "In Maza, Leverkusen have an outstanding player. He creates space and wins duels."

Undav would surely enjoy playing alongside Maza. That cannot happen at international level, though, even if Germany coach Jürgen Klopp selects the Stuttgart player again in future. Maza wore the DFB shirt from under-18 to under-20 level but chose Algeria just over two years ago.

Born to an Algerian father and a Vietnamese mother, Maza grew up in Berlin with three cultures and could have played for all three countries. "I love all three countries and in the end made my decision for various reasons, those are private," Maza said at the beginning of the year.

Summer holidays and family visits to Algeria are likely to have played an emotional part in his decision, but the sporting case mattered too. Competition for his position in the Germany team is immense in the long term, with Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala only two years older than him. Algeria offered a quicker route to senior international football. "I wanted to be able to play for a senior national team as early as possible and play as many matches as possible for the national side as a professional," Maza explained to Bild.

In October 2024, a month and a half before his 19th birthday, Maza made his Algeria debut. He has now made 24 international appearances for the North Africans, fulfilling his aim of playing an important role in a senior national team early in his career. His first truly big performances in the national shirt came around the turn of 2025 to 2026 at the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco. Maza was among Algeria's best players, and an Algerian outlet promptly dubbed him "Mazadona", in reference to Argentina legend Diego Maradona.

At the World Cup last summer, Maza was also a regular starter as Algeria went out to Switzerland in the round of 32 (0-2). He faced Messi's Argentina in the group stage (0-3), when the eight-time Ballon d'Or winner scored a hat-trick as the Algerians were thrashed. Messi seems to have seen something special in Maza nonetheless.