Young BVB attacker confirms name change and speaks on learning German
The young talent had an interesting debut to competitive league play on Saturday serving as a wingback. In addition to carrying a new name into the season, Gittens has also acquired new language skills.
Twenty-year-old attacker "Jamie Gittens" is already entering his fourth season in a Dortmund tricot. The London native signed with BVB all the way back in September of 2020. He made his first team debut in April of 2021 and had already earned his first start later that month. By the second match-day of the subsequent season, he had scored his inaugural Bundesliga goal.
He's now notched four Bundesliga tallies and scored once in the Champions' League in 49 appearances across all competitions for the first team. The heavily-capped youth international has always a knack for impressing his coaches and gained a reputation for coming through in the clutch. There are whispers in German footballing circles that this may be the year the youngster finally nails down a starting spot.
For his own part, the player has opted to enter the season with a new name. All throughout training camp through to Dortmund's first competitive match on Saturday, the former Man City academy man has dropped the "Bynoe-Gittens" from the back of his jersey. In an article published by German journalist Kevin Pinnow of North-Rhine Westphalia's "Ruhr Nachrichten", the winger explained why.
“Both are my father's names, but he said he thought it would be better if I just went by Gittens because it's shorter,” the player said, “Most people know him as Gittens, so I'll only go by Gittens in future.”
Gittens put in a lively starting shift at the novel left-wingback-position in Dortmund's 4-1 win over 1. FC Phönix Lübeck on Saturday. New BVB trainer Nuri Sahin's roster features plenty of attackers, but there may well be a slot for Gittens farther back as Sahin attempts to adequately compensate for the loss of Ian Maatsen. Just like Maatsen, Gittens can play as a sort of hybrid midfielder.
"I want to score more goals and add more assists this season," Gittens also noted in the interview, "And hopefully we can win the title as a team. One never knows what will happen, but I'm feeling confident."
Gittens has especially impressed Germans with his growing knowledge of the language. During Dortmund's recent Asia tour, he conducted an interview exclusively in German. As quoted by Pinnow, Gittens confirmed that he had invested a lot of time learning German with his tutor. It appears as if he has more pleasant surprises in store for the season.