Ibrahim Maza is at the World Cup with Algeria after choosing the senior path that led him away from Deutschland. At 20 years old, the Bayer Leverkusen attacker has already turned a youth-team background into a World Cup squad place and a debut on football’s biggest stage.
Berlin to Algerien
Maza was born and raised in Berlin, trained by Hertha BSC and shaped in part by his Algerian father and Vietnamese mother. He said the extra training he once disliked later became part of his game: "Damals fand ich das Zusatztraining nicht cool. Aber jetzt, wenn ich zurückblicke, hat es mich zu dem Spieler gemacht, der ich heute bin."
That path is what makes his current World Cup spot notable. He had played for German youth national teams and could have been in Julian Nagelsmann’s squad, but he chose Algeria and made that decision pay off with a senior debut in 2024, when Algeria beat Togo 5:1.
Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga in Leverkusen
His rise has not been limited to international football. Maza moved from Hertha BSC to Bayer Leverkusen in the previous year and has also played in the Champions League, giving Algeria a player who has already handled both club and international pressure before reaching the tournament in the USA, Mexico and Kanada.
He has also been direct about the mentality behind that rise. In a Vereinsinterview, he described the standard he carries from Berlin: "Ein Künstler, der nicht arbeitet, ist auf dem Feld nicht so viel wert." He also said he wanted to reach a senior national team as soon as possible and collect as many matches as possible as a professional international.
Argentinien, Jordanien und Maza
His World Cup debut ended in a 0:3 loss to Argentinien, with Lionel Messi on the other side, but the bigger development is already fixed: Algeria has a World Cup player who came through Deutschland’s youth pathway and still chose Algerien for the senior stage. On Tuesday, Algeria play Jordan at 5.00 Uhr MESZ, and Maza remains part of that squad push.
The open question now is simple: how close was he to a senior Deutschland call-up before he made the switch? For Algeria, the answer is already visible in the squad sheet and on the World Cup stage.
