The timing has been impossible to miss. On the evening of Sunday, 9 November, Malek El Mala swung a cross in from the right and Saïd El Mala turned it in at the near post in stoppage time of Cologne’s 2-1 home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen. It was the first time two brothers had combined for a goal and an assist in the Bundesliga since Hamit and Halil Altintop did it for Schalke against Hamburg on 14 October 2006.
Two days later, the official Bundesliga site turned the moment into a family feature, listing dozens of sibling pairs who have shared the German top flight.
The El Mala story had been building for a week. Malek, 21, made his Bundesliga debut off the bench at Union Berlin on 1 November and scored Cologne’s equaliser seven minutes after coming on, poking home a Castro-Montes flick-on from a corner that his 20-year-old brother Saïd had whipped in. It made them the first siblings to appear together for Cologne in a Bundesliga game since Klaus and Thomas Allofs in the 1986/87 season.
Saïd put the follow-up into words a week later, after the Leverkusen game at the RheinEnergieStadion.
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“I keep saying that we understand each other blindly on the pitch,” he told Bundesliga.com. “I saw how he shaped up to cross. Then I made a run straight to the near post. The ball from him was brilliant, of course.”
From Cologne’s youth system to Dortmund’s midfield
If the El Malas gave the story its moment, the Bellinghams gave it a bigger stage.
On Thursday, 6 November, the Football Association named Jobe Bellingham in Thomas Tuchel’s England squad for the Nations League fixtures against Croatia at Wembley on 12 November and Spain at the Metropolitano in Madrid on 15 November. It was his first senior call-up. Jude, who left Borussia Dortmund for Real Madrid in 2023, is also in the squad.
Jobe, now 21 and playing in Jude’s old midfield slot at Dortmund, told Hayters TV he had received the news from Tuchel by phone while driving back from training, calling it “quite surreal”.
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Asked about sharing the camp with his brother, he told the agency: “I can’t ignore it, but obviously with Jude being here too, it’s a great, great feeling for the family.”
Schlotterbecks, Kroos, Götze: a league built for family stories
The Bundesliga has long been fertile ground for sibling pairs, and several are active right now. Nico Schlotterbeck, 184 Bundesliga appearances, captains Borussia Dortmund; his older brother Keven, on 152 appearances, wears the armband at FC Augsburg. According to the Bundesliga feature, the pair led out their clubs against each other in the 2025/26 season.
Toni Kroos racked up 173 Bundesliga games before moving to Madrid. Younger brother Felix Kroos spent 80 games in the league with Werder Bremen and Union Berlin. Mario Götze, scorer of Germany’s winning goal in the 2014 World Cup final, has 344 Bundesliga appearances, dwarfing the 10 that younger brother Felix has managed in the top flight.
Sami and Rani Khedira never shared a club in the Bundesliga but logged 403 games between them, Sami largely at VfB Stuttgart, Rani with Union Berlin and RB Leipzig among others. In 2022/23, Rani scored the goal that took Union into the Champions League.
Many of these pairs never actually took a Bundesliga pitch at the same time. The El Malas are among the rare few who have, which is what gave 9 November its edge: the ball from Malek, the finish from Saïd, and a German first in 20 years attached to their surname.
Jobe Bellingham and England kick off against Croatia at Wembley on Thursday, 12 November.
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