Scouting Bayern Munich's Rising Star Niklas Dorsch

In recent years, Bayern Munich have played a decreasing role in producing for the Germany national teams.

Once the backbone of the DFB (German FA) setup, the club that produced Philipp Lahm and Bastian Schweinsteiger, and later Thomas Muller and Holger Badstuber, has had progressively fewer representatives in the youth national teams in recent years.

During the current international break, Bayern are represented by just two players among the five Germany squads from the under-17 to under-21 levels. This is no anomaly for a club whose under-19 and under-17 teams stand fifth and second in their respective South/Southwest Bundesliga tables.

It's not all doom and gloom for Bayern's youth ranks, though. Those two youth internationals are quite promising. Fans have enjoyed watching summer signing Joshua Kimmich's profile rise as the season has worn on. Many were surprised he was called up to the under-21 side and not given his first nomination to Joachim Low's senior team this time around.

The other up-and-comer, one who is still more under the radar, is Germany under-18 international Niklas Dorsch.

The central midfielder, who celebrated his 18th birthday in January, has had difficulties over the last nine months and therefore has enjoyed less of the spotlight than Werder Bremen striker and Manchester United target, according to German Weser Kurier (h/t Metro), Johannes Eggestein and all-rounder Felix Passlack, who recently made his Borussia Dortmund debut.

Yet Dorsch is one of Germany's finest players in his age group and could become a real star. Many Bayern fans will remember Fabian Benko (also born in 1998) training with the senior team last summer. Dorsch almost surely would have too, but he was recovering from a serious injury.

Even his sidelined status didn't stop Bayern from offering Dorsch, along with Benko, a professional contract last September, and he put pen to paper on a deal designed to keep him at the Allianz Arena until the end of June 2018.

Dorsch finally joined Bayern's senior squad for the winter training camp in Qatar and looks to have put an injury-riddled half-season behind him.

During the UEFA European Under-17 Championship opener against Belgium last summer, Dorsch suffered a tibia fracture that kept him out of action for several months. He returned to the pitch for Bayern's under-19 team at the end of September and was rushed to play at the FIFA U-17 World Cup a few weeks later, but it was all a bit too soon and Germany were eliminated by Croatia in the last 16.

After the under-17 World Cup, Dorsch returned to Bayern's reserves before joining the senior side in Qatar. Having recently been shifted into the reserve team, his fledgling career looks to be back on course.

So what is it that makes Dorsch such a talent?

A versatile central midfielder, Dorsch has been likened to both Bastian Schweinsteiger and Toni Kroos. He seems to combine the talents of both. Like Kroos, he's a brilliant distributor of the ball and, despite possessing understandable strengths and weaknesses, is capable of playing in any central-midfield role so long as there are suitable complements around him.

Whether as a deep-sitting playmaker, a box-to-box player or an advanced playmaker, Dorsch can do it all. He's one of a new breed of central midfielders in the post-Makelele specialists era who possess the versatility to be used in a variety of roles, such as Kroos, Ilkay Gundogan and Thiago Alcantara.

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Niklas Dorsch (17), considered to be Bayern's biggest talent, finally made his comeback after a serious tibia injury. pic.twitter.com/2fZ5lHDDVj

— Acer (@Halbverteidiger) September 26, 2015"

Speaking to the official website of the DFB, the body's technical and tactical trainer Marcel Lucassen described Dorsch as a "connecting player" who can receive the ball with his back to goal and already know how to turn and speed up the flow of the game. It's a skill he described as "indispensable" for a midfielder.

According to the same report, Dorsch became friends with Kroos during the latter's stay at Bayern and has kept in touch with him since the 25-year-old moved to Real Madrid in 2014. Dorsch idolizes Kroos, and it's easy to see the World Cup winner's influence on the youngster's style of play.

Dorsch and Kroos aren't entirely alike, however. Whereas the Real man is often criticized for being nonchalant and lacking aggression, Dorsch is more Schweinsteiger-like in that he's much more combative in the center. He's one of just three 1998-born players in the Bayern reserves and often faces off against players much older than himself. Yet Dorsch—who has a tattoo on his arm reading: "Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can do what others can't"—is anything but shy.

This attitude makes him a natural leader, and he was named captain of the Bayern under-17 team last season. However, his aggression is not without some downsides. His lack of discipline has got him into trouble; Dorsch has been shown the yellow card in each of the last seven matches he's appeared in, including one match in which he was sent off for two bookable offenses. That's the kind of record that would make even Mark van Bommel raise an eyebrow.

Yet if he learns to contain it, such a fiery nature can be a big boost to a player's game. Fans may recall Bayern's January friendly with Karlsruhe, in which Dorsch replaced David Alaba for the final quarter of the game. The youngster turned many heads, including that of teammate Jerome Boateng, who pointed out that he not only played well but was the most aggressive player on the pitch, per Bild.

Central-midfield prospects have come and gone at Bayern in recent years, with Pierre Hojbjerg and Gianluca Gaudino's profiles rising and falling before both were sent on loan, neither enjoying quite as much success as Kroos or Alaba had when they briefly left Bayern to earn more playing time and develop.

Still, there is good reason to believe in the potential for Dorsch to have more success than his predecessors. The youngster finished runner-up in his age group for the Fritz Walter Medal last spring, winning the silver medal for the under-17 level.

The awards are given to the best German youth performers, with some big names among their recipients. Previous under-17 silver medalists include Schalke starlet Max Meyer, a capped Germany international, and Julian Brandt, who at 19 is closing in on 100 senior appearances for Bayer Leverkusen.

The fact Dorsch managed to claim the silver despite injury limiting his chances to show his quality when the spotlight was on speaks well of his potential and how highly he's regarded among the DFB staff.

The key for Dorsch is to follow the motto written on his arm—to keep striving for greatness in the present so he'll one day be able to do what no one else can. He's already recovered from a devastating fracture and come back strongly. If he keeps up his effort, there's no reason he won't be able to following in the footsteps of his idol, Kroos, and breaking into the senior Bayern and Germany teams.

@Mr_Bundesliga