Felix Passlack was a serial winner in the youth set-up. He won the German Championship twice with the U18s - in 2014 and 2015 - and then repeated the feat in 2016 with the U19s. Not many players can boast of winning three titles in three years! He captained the BVB U19s in their 5-3 win over TSG Hoffenheim in the 2016 final and was involved in each of the five goals, scoring one himself.
Passlack made his Bundesliga debut for the first team on 2 March 2016 in a 2-0 win away to SV Darmstadt 98. In total, he’s made 16 appearances in Germany’s top tier. He spent the 2017/18 season out on loan at TSG Hoffenheim, the 2018/19 season at English club Norwich City (helping them win promotion to the Premier League) and the 2019/20 season at Fortuna Sittard in the Netherlands, where he played in 25 of their 26 Eredivisie matches before the cancellation of the season due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Passlack, now 22, first started playing football as a four-year-old for SV Fortuna Bottrop. He stayed at his hometown club for eight years before joining Rot-Weiß Oberhausen in 2010, and then, in 2012, he moved to Borussia Dortmund. In January 2016, Passlack was called up by coach Thomas Tuchel to join first-team training at just 17 years of age.
His goal in the 8-4 win over Legia Warsaw in November 2016 made him the youngest-ever German goalscorer in the UEFA Champions League, at 18 years and 177 days old. When asked after the match what his abiding memories of the evening would be, Passlack’s response was perhaps unsurprising: ''The goal and the historic result. Of course it makes me proud.''
In 2015, the midfielder won the Fritz Walter Medal for best youth player in his age group. In the space of just six months, he represented his country at both the U17 Euros in Bulgaria and the U17 World Cup in Chile. At the former, the powerful right-footer shone as the second-highest goalscorer in the tournament, while at the latter, he impressed as captain and midfield general.