Ebnoutalib comes from a sporting background. His father, Faissal, was a silver medallist for Germany in taekwondo at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000.
“My father took me to taekwondo training for 10 years and I think that has also helped me in football,” he said on Tuesday.
“Doing Taekwondo made me more flexible, so I have never had any muscular injuries.”
Yet the young striker’s journey to the top was not always easy.
After coming through the ranks at amateur club Rot-Weiss Frankfurt, he endured a disastrous spell at Italian side AC Perugia from 2022 to 2023.
Ebnoutalib remembered how, as an 18-year-old in a foreign country, he was “shouted off the training pitch” by a coach during his first session with the senior team.
He would make only one league appearance for Perugia in Serie C, before leaving in late 2023.
“In footballing terms it was the wrong decision for me [to go to Italy], but without that experience, I don’t think I would be where I am today,” he said.
After returning to Germany, Ebnoutalib’s career appeared to have stalled until Cimen handed him a fresh chance at Giessen in July 2024.
The move kick-started his meteoric rise, propelling him from the fourth tier to the top flight in the space of a year.
After signing for Elversberg in January 2025, he narrowly missed out on Bundesliga promotion last May before hitting a brilliant run of form in the autumn.
Now, the 22-year-old is looking forward to Champions League football with Eintracht and a Bundesliga debut against Karim Adeyemi, Emre Can and Serhou Guirassy on Friday.
“To make a jump like that in the space of a year and suddenly be playing against world-class players is pretty crazy,” he admitted.
Ebnotualib may well be thrown in at the deep end on Friday, with Frankfurt currently short on frontline options.
First-choice striker Jonathan Burkardt is out with a calf injury while French forward Elye Wahi has been loaned to Nice.
Former coach Cimen believes that Ebnoutalib is ready to make his mark on the top flight.
“With his abilities, we always knew he would end up in the top divisions,” he said.
He added that it would be “no surprise” to see Ebnoutalib land at a Premier League club one day.
“The Premier League is a physically very tough league, and Younes has all the right qualities for that,” he said.
“For now, though, he is living his dream with Eintracht Frankfurt.”
