Owner of Olympic silver from Rio Davie Selke: His parents are from Czech Republic and Ethiopia, he represented Germany in football

Do you know what Davie Selke and former Czech international Theo Gebre Selassie have in common? Apart from the fact that they spent two seasons together at Werder Bremen, they also share the same background. Both have a mother from the Czech Republic and a father from Ethiopia. But unlike Gebre Selassie, Selke was born and raised in Germany.

Selke was born on 20 January 1995 in Schorndorf, Germany. His mother is from Lanškroun and his father from Ethiopia.

Until he was fifteen, he spent most of his holidays in the vicinity of Lanškroun. He always shared his love for football with his Czech grandfather, when he used to go to various tournaments with him. Perhaps it was the holidays in Lanškroun that contributed to Selke’s understanding of Czech quite well.

At the age of fourteen he joined Hoffenheim’s junior team, where he stayed until he was eighteen. Then he moved to Bremen. His Bundesliga debut came on 3 November 2013, when he came on in the 64th minute against Hannover 96, who Werder managed to win 3:2. He stayed at Werder until 2015. He then moved to the then second league Leipzig.

In his first season in Leipzig, the European Under-19 and Under-21 champion helped his team to promotion to the Bundesliga. His good performances earned him a nomination for the Rio Olympics, where he took home a silver medal. After returning from Rio, he had one more season in Leipzig. He then moved to Hertha Berlin.

Selke lasted two and a half seasons in Berlin. In the 2017/18 season, he peeked in three Europa League games. He played a full match against Bilbao and Ukraine’s Luhansk. He played his last Europa League game to date in a rematch against Luhansk. In this match he scored 58 minutes.

In the middle of the 2019/20 season, he went on loan back to Werder to return to Hertha Berlin again in the summer of 2021. He lasted at the Berlin club until the beginning of this year. In January, he signed for Cologne, for whom he currently plays in the German Bundesliga.

At one time, the Czech national football team toyed with the idea of calling Selke up to the national team, given his Czech roots.

So far, Selke has only made starts for Germany in the junior categories. That includes the Olympics. He is still waiting for a nomination to the German men’s national football team. However, we haven’t seen Davie in a Czech jersey yet, and in recent years this topic hasn’t even been on the table.

Source:: iROZHLAS, Transfermarkt