Bundesliga
The Bundesliga honours the best young talents in the league with the Rookie of the Month Award, in association with Sorare. Eintracht Frankfurt's Nathaniel Brown, Michael Olise of Bayern Munich and Holstein Kiel's Lasse Rosenboom are up for nomination from December 2024 – vote for your favourite now!
>>> Get the lowdown on the Bundesliga Rookie award, presented by Sorare!
Specific criteria must be met in order for a player to qualify as a Rookie. He must be younger than 23 on Matchday 1 of the new season and cannot have started a Bundesliga match in any previous campaign. Furthermore, players can have accumulated no more than 450 minutes of action before the start of the Bundesliga season in question. That means that youngsters who have only made brief appearances in their careers so far and who have not yet had the chance to fully showcase their talents still have the opportunity to be named Rookie of the Month, presented by Sorare.
The monthly winners receive one of the coveted Bundesliga Rookie trophies, before vying for the Rookie of the Season prize. As well as the fans (40%), Bundesliga clubs (30%) and a panel of Bundesliga experts (30%) are part of the voting process.
December nominees
Nathaniel Brown (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Brown has been an Eintracht player since January 2024. Frankfurt snapped up the Amberg native almost a year ago, however, the left-footed player initially stayed on loan at Nuremberg, where he worked his way up from the U17s to the seniors. There, he established himself as a regular presence in Bundesliga 2 in 2023/24. In the summer, he made the jump to the Bundesliga with Eintracht. Despite a promising pre-season, Brown was overlooked at the start of the campaign. On Matchday 5, the 21-year-old was in Frankfurt's Bundesliga squad for the first time, but he had to wait until Matchday 8 for his debut. The young talent came on as a substitute in the closing stages of the 1-1 draw at Union Berlin. It was from that tentative start that Brown’s meteoric rise began.
While Brown was in the starting line-up in every game in November, he initially acted as a sub in December. The dynamic Germany U21 international then started in the last two games. On Matchday 14 in Leipzig he once again demonstrated his ice-cold instincts, scoring his third goal of the season (with a total of only six shots on goal, two of them in December). Most recently in the 3-1 home defeat against Mainz, Brown set up Rasmus Kristensen's consolation goal. For the first time in his young Bundesliga career, a corner he took led to a goal. The intense pressure to think fast, work in tight spaces and face tricky opponents in the Bundesliga doesn't seem to bother the young left-winger, as a strong 92 percent of his passes reached a teammate this month: impressive stats from a Bundesliga newcomer. "[The recognition] is a just reward for his efforts," praised Eintracht coach Dino Toppmöller, who says of Brown's early days: "It makes me proud of how he handled the situation." Winning one more Rookie award would surely make the Eagles’ tactician even proud of his protégé.
Olise is new to the Bundesliga, but there were great expectations associated with his arrival right from the start. The new addition from Crystal Palace was brought in to help revitalise Bayern's wide game and intensify the competition for places. The France international has delivered from the get-go. He was nominated for the Rookie award in September, but lost to Frankfurt's Kauã Santos. Olise then deservedly secured the prize in October. The English-born winger also performed exceptionally well in December. He contributed an assist in each of the two victories against Heidenheim and Leipzig. His 12 assists for shots on goal in December were by far the single best in the Bundesliga. His own six attempts on goals in December were unsuccessful, however, with Olise hitting the post in the defeat in Mainz.
The Frenchman, who loves dribbling, also won an admirable 59 percent of his duels as an offensive player and kept the Bayern in-game pace high with 28 sprints per match. His 90 percent pass completion rate is also impressive given his risky style of play. With a player like Olise, superlatives are often dished out, while comparisons are also made with stars from the past - for example Arjen Robben, who also liked to dribble inwards from the right and then threaten with a pass or shot on goal. This might become a burden for some young players, but Bayern coach Vincent Kompany has no worries about his protégé. "I don't think he's one who feels pressure. He just enjoys football," the Belgian said of Olise. Fans can even feel Olise’s joy when they see the right winger in action.
Lasse Rosenboom (Holstein Kiel)
Kiel are known for having an instinct for talent. In the recent past, the promoted side have regularly signed players from the lower leagues who are capable of development and then incorporated them into their senior set-up. A prominent example from last summer is Phil Harres. The attacker came from Homburg in the Regionalliga Südwest and is currently the Storks’ second best goalscorer. Another player, who came from the Regionalliga Nord, has now crept into the starting line-up in Rosenboom. The right-sided defender and sometimes wide midfielder moved from Werder Bremen II to Kiel in the summer of 2023. In the team’s promotion season, he only played for 30 minutes in the last four games of 2023/24. In 2024/25, he was a player to keep an eye on right from the start. In the first competitive game of the season, a DFB Cup encounter in Aachen, Rosenboom came on in the 79th minute and scored a brace to help Kiel come from a goal behind to lead 3-2 in his 11 minutes on the pitch.
Keeper Timon Weiner then exuberantly called the 22-year-old sub a “world-class player,” while Kiel coach Marcel Rapp also praised Rosenboom. “Lasse is a good kid whose development is continuing with us. He trains well and offers great competition for us in his position and all for someone who rarely broke above playing for the U23 team last season." In 2024/25, the 1.90 metre tall right-back made three appearances in the Regionalliga Nord in Kiel's second team and gradually fought his way into the Storks' starting line-up. The East Frisian native played in Holstein’s three games in December. On Matchday 15 against Augsburg, he grabbed his first Bundesliga goal with a strike to make it 1-1 that kick-started Kiel’s path to a 5-1 victory, the side’s biggest Bundesliga success to date. His 33 sprints per 90 minutes in December also point to the hard work that the player brings to the right-hand side of the field. Rosenboom and the aforementioned Harres have more in common than the fact that they made it from the Regionalliga to Kiel's starting lineup in a very short time. They have both now been nominated for a Rookie award. And, who knows, maybe Rosenboom can snag the award in December that his teammate just missed out on in November.
Previous winners
November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
Watch: Victor Boniface was named 2023/24's Rookie of the Season