{"id":104380,"date":"2025-10-09T23:54:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/?p=104380"},"modified":"2025-10-09T23:54:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:54:43","slug":"bayer-leverkusens-ernest-poku-speaks-on-possibility-of-germany-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/2025\/bayer-leverkusens-ernest-poku-speaks-on-possibility-of-germany-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayer Leverkusen&#8217;s Ernest Poku speaks on possibility of Germany switch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Heavily capped Dutch U21 international Ernest Poku came to Bayer Leverkusen this summer with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/2025\/new-bayer-leverkusen-signing-ernest-poku-speaks-out-on-erik-ten-hag-sacking\/\">the full expectation of playing under a Dutch head coach.<\/a> While that may not exactly worked out as planned, but the 21-year-old can still absolutely be satisfied with the way in which his Bundesliga career has begun.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After impressing off the bench in three consecutive matches under new B04 head coach Kasper Hjlumand, Poku appears to have earned a regular starting spot. The former AZ Alkmaar man has started on the left-hand-side of the top attacking axis in the last Bundesliga and Champions League fixtures.<\/p>\n<p>Poku is also on a roll, scoring in his last two Bundesliga appearances. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transfermarkt.de\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Transfermarkt<\/a> <\/strong>reports that Poku is in line for an October upgrade. The youngster&#8217;s estimated market value will be tripled from \u20ac4m to \u20ac12m. For the moment Poku is spending the October international break with the Dutch U21s.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Although Poku has been representing Holland since the U16 level and &#8211; following a strong U21 European championship this summer &#8211; nears the top Dutch level, it&#8217;s worth noting that he remains a native of Hamburg who lived in the Hanseatic city state for the first seven years of his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Poku still understands some German and scored his first Bundesliga goal in his hometown against St. Pauli. In an interview with Holland&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voetbalzone.nl\/nieuws\/jong-oranje-sterkhouder-ernest-poku-kan-voor-drie-landen-spelen-nog-niets-gehoord\/blt122384f7f63ca7be\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Voetbalzone,<\/strong><\/a> Poku seemed open to making the country of his new club employer his new national allegiance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>That would be entirely possible, but at the moment I&#8217;m just focusing on the Oranje,&#8221; <\/em>Poku told the online portal. &#8220;<em>Whatever happens, happens. I was glad to score my first Bundesliga goal in Hamburg.<\/em> <em>I work hard every day and give my best at Leverkusen and Jong Oranje.<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/\">GGFN<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PeterVicey\"><strong>Peter Weis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with Dutch online portal Voetbalzone, emerging Bayer Leverkusen star Ernest Poku has spoken on the possibility of switching his national allegiance to Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12312420,"featured_media":104381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,346,11],"tags":[1129,700,449,394,3108,570,3413,2683,1028,966],"class_list":["post-104380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-die-mannschaft","category-bayer-leverkusen","category-bundesliga","tag-az-alkmaar","tag-bayer-04-leverkusen","tag-bundesliga","tag-champions-league","tag-ernest-poku","tag-germany","tag-kasper-hjulmand","tag-netherlands-u21","tag-news","tag-st-pauli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12312420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104380"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104383,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104380\/revisions\/104383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getfootballnewsgermany.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}