Mathis Albert debuts for Borussia Dortmund at 16 in Soccer

Mathis Albert made his Bundesliga debut for Borussia Dortmund in soccer on Sunday at 16 years, 11 months and five days old. He came on in the 88th minute of a 4-0 win over Freiburg, and the appearance set a new mark for the youngest American to play in the league.

Albert and Dortmund

Albert was three months younger than Giovanni Reyna was when he debuted in 2020. Reyna had taken the record from Christian Pulisic in 2016, when Pulisic had set the previous American benchmark for a Bundesliga appearance.

That makes Albert the latest name in a Dortmund line that has kept opening the door for American teenagers. He is the seventh American to wear a Borussia Dortmund jersey, joining a club that has already used young U.S. attackers as a pathway into top-level minutes.

From Greenville to Germany

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Albert was in the LA Galaxy’s youth system when he was 13. Interest also came from Bayern Munich, Ajax, Paris Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund, before his family moved to Germany in 2024 after his father was offered a job there.

By last summer’s Club World Cup in the United States, Albert was already on Dortmund’s traveling roster, though he did not appear. Since then, he has played for the United States at the Under-17 World Cup and moved up to the Under-19 level.

The debut gives Dortmund another American winger to develop, and it resets the age bar again after Reyna’s 2020 mark had stood as the standard. For Albert, the move from the traveling roster to the Bundesliga pitch ended with 2 minutes and 24 seconds of first-team league action inside a 4-0 result that already had the game in hand.