Belgium international striker Michy Batshuayi is back in the Bundesliga with Eintracht Frankfurt. - © Clive Brunskill

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Michy Batshuayi: 5 things on Eintracht Frankfurt's superhero-loving forward

04.02.2025

Michy Batshuayi is back in the Bundesliga after the joining Eintracht Frankfurt from Galatasaray in the January transfer window. bundesliga.com takes a look at the path that brought the former Borussia Dortmund forward back to Germany...

1) Soaking up the pressure

Frankfurt are the 10th club of Batshuayi's senior career, and he has played for some massive outfits, including his 14-game cameo at Dortmund while on loan from Chelsea during the 2017/18 season. Now 31 and a seasoned pro with 56 caps (and a healthy 27 goals) for Belgium, he is the only foreign-born player to have played for all three giant clubs in Turkey: Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray. He handled the heavy atmosphere of Istanbul derbies coolly, and clearly the only pressure concerning him now is in the tyres of the cars he often stands in front of when he posts to his 3.2 million Instagram followers.

Watch: All of Batshuayi's goals for Dortmund

Earlier in his career, however, pre-match nerves did sometimes get the better of him, and there was only one way to - almost literally - soak up the pressure. “SpongeBob [SquarePants] is a cartoon I love,” he said, aged 22. "Especially when I’m in bed by myself at home and I have trouble sleeping, my reflex is to put cartoons on. I took to SpongeBob and started watching it frequently; even when I’m older I think I’ll still watch the show!"

2) Batsman, the new Avenger?

Batshuayi's short first stay in Germany plugged the gap left by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's departure for Arsenal as he netted seven goals in 10 Bundesliga outings to help BVB out of domestic trouble during a troubled campaign. But he replaced "Auba" in more ways than one.

The Gabon international forward often sported superhero masks in celebration, notably teaming up with Marco Reus as Batman and Robin after finding the net in a Revierderby against Schalke. Batshuayi's nickname is - quite obviously - "Batsman", and he even teamed up with Marvel as the Belgian ambassador for their wildly successful Avengers film series shortly after helping Dortmund pull clear of relegation in 2018.

"Superheroes don’t get injured. Now that Dortmund is safe, I’ve just passed my tests to join the Avengers team and prepare for the World Cup," wrote Batshuayi, who would score once and feature in three games as Belgium finished third at the 2018 World Cup.

"A great fan of comics, he's got all the qualities to join the Avengers team," said a press release by the company. "His arrival in the Marvel universe, of course, will remain a mystery."

3) Wheeling and loan dealing

Other mysteries though have been resolved, such as this one: when asked by Crystal Palace's in-house media after joining the club on loan in January 2019 if he slept upside down, he laughed and - unsurprisingly, if disappointingly - replied, "No!".

He returned to Palace on loan again for the 2020/21 season, one of five temporary stops during the six years he spent at Chelsea. After Dortmund, he was also borrowed by Spanish club Valencia for the 2018/19 campaign, and then went to Beşiktaş for 2021/22 following his stints at Palace.

He ended up making just 77 first-team appearances for Chelsea, scoring 25 goals, but he does hold a special place in the club's history.

“Friday was a magical moment. Like in a dream,” he said having scored the only goal of the game against West Bromwich Albion to make Antonio Conte's team the 2016/17 champions of England in his first season with the west London club.

He scored five league goals that season, four of which came in just 126 minutes during the final three Premier League matches of the campaign. It would prove to be the highpoint of his time at Stamford Bridge.

Batshuayi scored the goal that won Chelsea the English Premier League title in 2016/17. - Laurence Griffiths

4) O(M) Brother!
In summer 2016, Batshuayi had gone to Chelsea from Marseille where comparisons had been made with another striker who made that same trip: Didier Drogba.

"There is not a single top 15 club in the world that is not interested in Batshuayi," enthused Marseille's then President Vincent Labrune, who saw the forward net 17 goals in 36 Ligue 1 games during his second and final season at the Stade Vélodrome.

When Michy left, Aaron Leya Iseka arrived at OM a week later. Who's he? Well, he's Batshuayi's younger brother. "A lot of people ask me that question," said Leya Iseka, replying to the obvious enquiry about his surname. "He took our dad's name, and me our mum's. I'm the youngest one in the family. My mum absolutely wanted me to have her surname."

Watch: Michy Batshuayi on life in Dortmund

5) Michy Bad-shuayi?
Born in the Belgian capital, Brussels, Batshuayi was spotted by the city's biggest club, Anderlecht, and brought into their youth academy. He didn't last long due to ill discipline, but was then picked up by another of Belgium's big clubs, Standard Liege, aged 14.

"He must be in the top three of the most difficult players we've had to deal with," said Christophe Dessy, Standard's youth academy director at the time. "It's true he had us tearing our hair out sometimes."

Batshuayi (l.) first made his name at Standard Liege - YORICK JANSENS

To improve Batshuayi's discipline, the club asked him to help out the ground staff and to clean the academy buildings, so that "he became aware of reality a bit," Dessy explained.

Though he was also later kicked out of a Belgium U21 squad, the message eventually did get through.

"In the past, I wasn't a bad kid, just a kid that made mistakes," he explained while at Marseille, where he played under the renowned disciplinarian Marcelo Bielsa during his first season. "Now, I am alongside professionals and I have to be professional."