DORTMUND, Germany — At first glance, it is easy to pinpoint the start of the Bundesliga’s love affair with young English players. The opening scene of a story that has swept a host of England’s brightest prospects out of the Premier League’s overstuffed academies and into top-flight German soccer is set at a specific time — the first few days of October 2016 — and in a specific place: Pula, Croatia.

That week, England’s under-17 team took part in the Croatian Cup, a youth invitational that also featured teams from Germany, Greece and the host nation. England won it, and in some style, rounding off the competition with an 8-1 rout of Germany.

Even before that, though, the amount of talent on display had turned heads. Several scouts from Bundesliga clubs had been in attendance at Pula’s Aldo Drosina Stadium for England’s first game, a 5-0 win against Croatia.

Though many of the English players involved would go on to win the under-17 World Cup a little more than a year later, one, in particular, stood out. A scout, present that day, remembers being taken aback by the player’s appetite. Even with England comfortably ahead, he said, he kept running, kept trying to score goals.