Jonathan Burkardt Scouting Report At Mainz 2024/2025: Germany’s Next Number 9? – Player Analysis

One of this season’s standout players in the German Bundesliga has undoubtedly been Mainz striker Jonathan Burkardt.

The Darmstadt-born forward netted 18 times in 29 league appearances—contributing about a third of Mainz’s 55 goals, which helped them return to the continental scene for the first time in nine years via the UEFA Conference League.

His outstanding form didn’t go unnoticed by Die Nationalelf manager Julian Nagelsmann, who gave him his maiden senior call-up and capped him three times during their UEFA Nations League campaign to date.

This is a well-earned reward for Burkardt.

His stellar performances this season have also earned him links to clubs like Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayer Leverkusen in his native country, as well as Manchester United and Newcastle United abroad.

With many big clubs in Western Europe looking at bringing in a goalscoring centre-forward this summer, Burkardt could well be in that mix as a somewhat under-the-radar option away from the headlines that Alexander Isak, Viktor Gyökeres, and Victor Osimhen all seem to be grabbing the most.

This scout report and player analysis will analyse Burkardt’s attacking contributions to Mainz this season and what could make him an interesting target for a top European side in the upcoming summer transfer window.

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Who Is Jonathan Burkardt?

Jonathan Burkardt is a 24-year-old German who stands at 5’11’ (1.81 m or 181 cm) and weighs 167 lbs (76 kg).

He began his footballing career at his hometown club, Darmstadt, before joining Mainz in 2014, where he’s played ever since.

As we covered when we analysed him in late 2021, a German media poll named him the “Rising Star of the Season.”

Less than a year later, he suffered a knee injury that kept him out of action for 10 months and stalled his development.

He’s not only recovered but he’s also taken his game to another level this season.

Although Burkardt is versatile enough to operate in different attacking roles, such as playing out wide or next to another forward in a two-striker system, he has predominantly been used and established himself as a centre-forward who leads the line this season in Mainz’s 3-4-2-1 formation.

Jonathan Burkardt Stats At Mainz 05

Above is his radar map, focusing on the metrics that matter most to the centre-forward position and how he ranks among other Bundesliga strikers in 2024/2025.

While his aerial duel success rate and frequency of hitting the target with his shots rank low, his expected goals (xG) and goals per 90 make him stand out, as his percentile rank in both metrics is among the best in the league.

His 18 league goals were only usurped by the top marksman in three of the top four clubs in the league, with Harry Kane, Patrick Schick, and Serhou Guirassy being the only players who netted more than him in the Bundesliga.

Being in such company speaks volumes about Burkardt’s efforts this season and why he’s being touted as a potential transfer target for some well-known names in the European game.

Jonathan Burkardt xG Map At Mainz 05

This shot map from Opta Analyst expands further on his impressive metrics regarding his xG and goals return.

What makes his numbers stand out even more, besides his total number of goals, is that he has actually outperformed his xG, both per shot attempt and across the league campaign as a whole.

He has scored 0.25 goals per shot despite his xG being slightly lower at 0.21 per shot, while his 18 goals bring a greater return than his 14.90 xG would suggest he should have for the season.

Looking further into the data visualisation of his shot map, it’s pretty clear where Burkardt does most of his damage and poses the most threat when it comes to his work in the opposition penalty area.

Half of his goals have come from inside the six-yard box, with seven coming from the penalty spot or closer, which goes well with his tag as a poacher in front of goal and highlights his exceptional movement inside the box.

Jonathan Burkardt Goal Analysis

One reason many top European clubs are in the market this summer for a goalscoring striker is the lack of consistency and reliability in the centre-forward position among their current options.

If Burkardt has been anything in front of goal this season, it’s consistent and reliable, particularly in the ways he’s scored.

In this section, we’ll examine three different goals to highlight some situations in which Burkardt has proven himself clinically with the right service.

First up is this header away to Augsburg early in the season.

As the ball from out of the back is flicked towards him by Hong Hyun-seok, Burkardt finds himself with time and space on the ball from a deeper position.

Rather than immediately looking to lay the ball off, he carries it forward and waits for left wing-back Phillipp Mwene to get into position offensively on the overlap before playing it to his feet.

After he passes to Mwene, he continues his run into the penalty area.

Just before the cross is played in, he moves into the small gap between the two Augsburg defenders at the near post.

Then, as the cross does come in, he is positioned perfectly to guide the ball from Mwene, adding power as he directs it towards goal and gives the Augsburg keeper no chance of stopping it.

This is an example of excellent timing, movement, and decision-making on Burkardt’s part from start to finish in this play.

This is a different type of goal from the previous one, which also came early on in the season, away at St. Pauli.

Burkardt starts off deep in his own half as Mainz is on the defensive against a St. Pauli attack, but he manages to nick the ball just before it arrives at an attacker in the box.

From there, they shift their mentality towards attacking transition, with four players moving forward, and Burkardt is the most advanced of them all.

He doesn’t receive the initial pass while he’s central; instead, it goes to Nadiem Amiri, who joins the play from behind.

Burkardt then notices the space behind with just two defenders at the back for the home side and changes his run to move off the right shoulder of the centre-back at the bottom of the play for Kiezkicker.

This gives Amiri the option to play him behind on the blind side of the defender, which he does by releasing the ball early and putting Burkardt through on goal.

His first touch is good, and he keeps advancing towards the goal without allowing the defender to close down to get near it.

This gives him the chance to shoot with his second touch, with the ball coming across his body, which he does and finishes expertly with a low, hard strike in the opposite bottom corner.

This goal isn’t a typical one for Burkardt this season, as most have come as a result of his sharp movement and instincts at the end of attacking moves in the opposition’s penalty area.

But it does highlight another element to his game: that he can provide a threat in transition and possess the necessary pace to break from back to front within seconds, as he did here by going from some 20 yards into his own half to scoring at the other end in under 10 seconds.

The last goal we’ll look at here came midway through the season at home to Hoffenheim and is the most common type of goal Burkardt has scored throughout this Bundesliga campaign.

He’s in the Hoffenheim box throughout the entire play and scores just inside the six-yard area, but the important thing here is his subtle, well-timed movements.

As the ball comes infield from Amiri towards Dominik Kohr, Burkardt checks his run from the edge of the penalty area rather than continuing to move towards the near post, which he noticed the defenders were anticipating.

When Kohr then plays the ball out to Lee Jae-sung, Burkardt immediately changes the direction of his run and targets the far post on the blind side of his marker, who takes his eye off Burkardt and pays attention to where the ball is instead.

By the time Lee played the ball across the penalty area, Burkardt was all alone at the back stick and had the simple task of finishing from close range once he got on the end of the pass.

Most of Burkardt’s goals have come in this fashion, with his supporting cast knowing how to pick out his movements well, using good timing and executing low crosses and cutbacks from the byline.

This makes Burkardt a perfect fit for the system that Mainz play and require of their central striker, but it does make him heavily reliant on getting the right service to be successful in these areas, as would any poacher.

With world-class players surrounding him in a bigger club, should a summer move materialise, on paper, Burkardt should thrive even more once his new side adapts to his movements and intricacies, especially as someone who is still yet to reach the prime years of his career at the age of just 24.

Jonathan Burkardt Areas Of Improvement

Despite his goalscoring output and general success as a poacher in front of goal, Burkardt has had a notable struggle when it comes to playing that isolated centre-forward role up front and leading the line on his own.

And that is with finding success when it comes to aerial and ground challenges up against defenders, where he ranks quite low for a Bundesliga striker.

Jonathan Burkardt Challenges

For example, above, we can see a data visual that compares the forwards across the league in terms of successfully won challenges per game.

And in this specific key performance indicator (KPI), Burkardt actually ranks dead last at just 0.25 per game.

For comparison’s sake, the only three strikers who scored more than him are Patrick Schick (0.38), Harry Kane (0.44), and Serhou Guirassy (0.50).

The highest is Philipp Hofmann of Bochum at 0.51, which suggests that the other top strikers in the league are at least relatively in line with the league average, winning their duels, while Burkardt is lagging heavily behind.

Jonathan Burkardt Aerial Duels

If we reduce challenges to aerial duels and make them possession-adjusted (PAdj) to account for team possession values, Burkardt’s ranking among Bundesliga forwards improves slightly but remains below par.

At 0.62, he is still far behind Kane (0.98), Schick (2.2), and Guirassy (3.83), among other highly rated strikers in the league, such as Tim Kleindienst, Nick Woltemade, and Victor Boniface.

Being aerially dominant isn’t the be-all and end-all for a striker, but for someone who scores so many of his goals from close range and relies on good service to be effective in front of goal, these metrics do more to hinder Burkardt’s prospects than they do to help him.

While great movement, scoring instincts, and a consistent ability to put the ball in the back of the net are all important, it’s also important to be at least at a certain standard when it comes to dealing with aerial duels and challenges with defenders, which the data suggests that he is not, at least not by the evidence of this season.

This is the single biggest aspect of his game that he’ll have to improve if he is to lead the line for a bigger club.

He must also learn to use all of his 5’11’ frame better to find more success in duels, and something defenders thrive on winning when up against poachers and other types of centre-forwards.

Conclusion

As we’ve covered in this analysis, Jonathan Burkardt is a forward who is coming off his career-best season.

In it, he scored 18 goals in the Bundesliga and became Mainz’s all-time top scorer in a single top-flight campaign, leading them to Europe in the process.

Although a serious knee injury stalled his promising rise a few seasons ago, he has not only recovered but also reached another level this season, which saw him among the top scorers in Germany.

This earned him a call-up to the national team and the interest of multiple top European clubs.

Whether he will put on a Mainz shirt again next season remains to be seen, but what’s for sure is that at just 24, there is a lot more to come from Burkardt as he moves into the prime years of his career.

Whichever future team Burkardt transfers to, they will certainly have a quality player in their attack.