New videos with celebrating colleagues from Bremen have not yet spread on the Internet. The hymns of praise from Hansi Flick and his World Cup comrades-in-arms certainly still rang in Niclas Füllkrug’s ears when the national football team moved into the tournament hotel in Qatar.
“I said to the team: Show that you are ready for Qatar, for the World Cup! He showed it!” said the national coach after his centre-forward’s redeeming goal in the international debut to make it 1-0 in Oman.
A few days before the first tough World Cup test against Japan, the 29-year-old Werder attacker was Flick’s savior and winner at the same time. “He’s an important player for us, especially in the box. He has the feeling in the center. He’ll be important for us, definitely. That’s why I’m even happier that he scored in the first game,” said Captain Manuel Neuer. If a capacity of Neuer says something like that after only 45 minutes in the national jersey before his fourth World Cup tournament, then that is a verbal accolade.
Füllkrug wants to “stay relaxed”
However, Füllkrug did not want to be promoted to the status of a great hopeful for the World Cup. “For me, everything goes a bit in quick succession,” he described his rise within a year from the second division striker, who was unknown to many, to the symbolic German number 9. “I’m still trying to stay relaxed. I’m staying down to earth and humble I’m glad I’m here,” said Füllkrug, who may also have benefited from the World Cup failures of Timo Werner and Lukas Nmecha, the ARD.
The online hyped clip of the Werder pros, who alone celebrated the nomination of their colleague with the ode to the Northern Irish cult striker with the phonetically similar-sounding name Will Grigg, rewritten into a filling pitcher, stood in euphoric contrast to this modesty. “On fire” is their goal getter, the Hanseatic League smashed a week ago. In the almost advanced footballer age, of course, Füllkrug knows that the “momentum” also invoked by national coach Flick is fully on his side.
Moukoko was unlucky when he hit the post
Teen debutant Youssoufa Moukoko lacked the goal luck in his post shot against Oman, which flies to Füllkrug. “He’s young, he’s 17 years old, he’ll be 18 in the next few days. I’m really happy. The way he’s doing in training here, it’s all wonderful,” said Flick about the young Dortmunder who works in job sharing the first half was allowed to run with a jug.
The national coach immediately announced a World Cup closure for Moukoko. “Just give him the time he needs. We’ll give him that. We want to support him. He just has very good abilities. We want to encourage that,” said Flick. As the fourth youngest national player in DFB history, Moukoko can now simply get a taste and learn in Qatar.
Different criteria apply to filling jugs. The question, which was wrapped up in a demanding statement immediately after the goal in Muscat, as to whether the DFB newcomer should be in the starting XI in the World Cup opener against Japan, arose from the reflex of the exuberant German longing for the goal-oriented player in the center of the attack.
Filling jug in prominent company
Flick did not respond to the typical centre-forward mania. “We let everything flow, so we still have a few days and can decide that in peace,” he said of Füllkrug’s starting chances against Japan. The rational logic is different. Füllkrug had shown exactly what Flick called him to do. The striker had set the lucky punch in a confused position. This joker quality could also be in demand at the World Cup.
But there is one thing that Füllkrug has already achieved. He is on a list of prominent first goal scorers in the DFB shirt. In this millennium, for example, World Cup record scorer Miroslav Klose (16 tournament goals), Mario Gomez and current teammate Serge Gnabry, who even scored three times against San Marino in his debut.
Statistics don’t give any guarantees, just like Bremen’s Internet songs. The much praised Will Grigg was not used at all for Northern Ireland at the EM 2016. Andreas Köpke and Paul Steiner last celebrated their DFB debut in the last test before a World Cup tournament – like Füllkrug and Moukoko now – in 1990. Neither of them played a minute at the tournament in Italy – but at least they became world champions.
