Serge Gnabry

Arsenal

Early career

Gnabry's former club VfB Stuttgart agreed to a £100,000 deal with Premier League club Arsenal in 2010, but he had to wait until 2011, when he was 16, to join. Gnabry officially joined Arsenal for the 2011–12 season. He played for the under-18s for the majority of the season but was then promoted to the reserves after impressive displays. By the end of the season, Gnabry had played six games, scoring two goals.

2012–15: Development and limited gametime

The 2012–13 season started off well for Gnabry after he was called up to the Arsenal first team for a pre-season friendly against FC Köln. He played 24 minutes after coming on at half-time and was replaced by Marouane Chamakh in the 69th minute. He then made his professional first-team debut for Arsenal on 26 September 2012 against Coventry City in the League Cup as a 72nd-minute substitute for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as Arsenal routed Coventry 6–1. On 20 October 2012, he made his Premier League debut in the 1–0 defeat against Norwich City at Carrow Road. At 17 years and 98 days, he became Arsenal's second-youngest player in the league's history after Jack Wilshere. Four days later, he made his UEFA Champions League debut, coming on as a substitute in Arsenal's 2–0 home loss to Schalke 04. In the first game of the 2013–14 season, Gnabry was included in Arsenal's first-team squad against Aston Villa and started the game on the bench. He then made his first start for the club…

Youth teams and 2016 Summer Olympics

Gnabry represented Germany at various youth levels, including under-16, under-17 and under-18 levels. In 2017, he was part of the U21 team which won the European Under-21 Championship. On 15 July 2016, Gnabry was selected to for the Germany squad at the 2016 Summer Olympics. On 4 August, he started for Germany against Mexico and scored Germany's first goal after 58 minutes in a 2–2 draw with Mexico. Three days later, he tripled his tally by putting two past South Korea, the second being a stoppage time free kick that helped Germany salvage a point in a 3–3 draw. On 10 August, Gnabry contributed two more goals in a 10–0 defeat of Fiji. In Germany's quarter-final match against Portugal, he scored his sixth goal of the tournament just before half-time as Germany prevailed with a 4–0 win. He ended the tournament as the joint top scorer along with his teammate Nils Petersen, helping Germany to win the silver medal.

Senior team

On 4 November 2016, Gnabry received his first call-up to the German senior team. Seven days later, he scored three goals on his debut in a 2018 World Cup qualifier against San Marino in an 8–0 away win. On 9 October 2019, during a 2–2 friendly international draw with Argentina, Gnabry became the fastest player to reach 10 goals for the nation, doing so in his 11th appearance and beating Miroslav Klose's record by 2 games. On 19 November 2019, he scored three goals in the 6–1 victory against Northern…

Gnabry, who could not join Bayern's academy since it was a two-hour drive from his home in Stuttgart, went to Arsenal when he was only 15. He later battled for fitness and first-team minutes, so he was loaned out to West Bromwich, where manager Tony Pulis mentioned that he was not ready for top-flight football, and was not good enough to play at the Hawthorns. Pulis later commented on him after his good performances with Bayern: "I'm amazed. We had him at West Brom, we took him on loan and we could never get him fit. He even got taken off in an Under-21 game and he went back to Arsenal and they sold him on ... To have him at West Brom and seeing him do what he's done is absolutely amazing." His Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger said in 2020 that "he's creative, he can score goals, right-footed, left-footed, good power, good penetration, very, very clever with the timing of his runs... I knew he would have a great career. He can be a number nine, a number 10... he's a very intelligent player." His coach at Werder Bremen, Alexander Nouri, said: "He is lightning quick, a clinical finisher, but he puts a lot of work now into his defence... now he's making these deep runs back to his own box defending. He's capable of doing this work while on the other hand making deep runs in attack".

Goal celebrations

Gnabry's trademark "cooking" celebration was inspired by NBA star James Harden; Gnabry explained it by saying: "There's a video on YouTube where he's cooking after dropping,…

Gnabry was born in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg to an Ivorian father and a German mother. In his youth, Gnabry was a talented sprinter but ultimately chose football over athletics.