Niclas Füllkrug on BVB: The DFB national striker is now snapping for Borussia Dortmund

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Borussia Dortmund has reinforced with a real storm edge: Niclas filling jug comes from SV Werder Bremen to the Signal Iduna Park and will fight for the German championship with BVB in the future. This allowed Borussia to close the squad position in the storm – a dangerous player who played with or instead of Sebastian Haller can run up. Above all, he should travel to the Africa Cup in January.

>>> BVB grabs Niclas Füllkrug

With the top scorer of the previous year, this was also achieved in a top-class manner: he contributed 16 goals as a striker for newly promoted Bremen and was therefore one of the decisive factors in Werder’s relegation. The last time an SVW striker clinched this crown was in 2005/06, when Miroslav Klose raised the top scorer’s cannon with 17 goals. On top of that, Füllkrug contributed five assists for his colleagues and thus also climbed up to third place among the top scorers. “Lücke” was still unlucky this season. Although he had the most shots on goal in Bremen with five, he only scored in the first round of the cup and not on the two previous Bundesliga matchdays.

With Jude Bellingham, BVB lost a player in the summer who can make a big difference in a game. Who takes action and cannot be stopped. This also applies to filling jugs. The striker scored a strong seven of his 16 goals last season to give his team a 1-0 lead. In the Bundesliga only Vincenzo Grifo was able to give the first impulse so often.

But the last impetus also belongs to the 30-year-old: his eight goals in the final quarter of an hour are the only high in the league. He also likes to score where all the fans can see it: at home. He scored ten goals in home games – nobody more.

Above all, Füllkrug is a breaker in the opposing penalty area. He scored four goals with a header – that was second place in the season ranking. He also sunk the crosses of his team-mates into the net four times – this is also the second-highest value in the Bundesliga after Frankfurt’s top striker Randal Kolo Muani. When push comes to shove, Borussia Dortmund needs a goal and you have a lot of possession around the opponent’s penalty area – then Füllkrug is the strongest.

But the attacker can’t just snap – to reduce him to that would not do him justice despite his great strength in the penalty area. He also plays as a “wall striker” at a very high level. You can play him high or low, he bounces balls or holds them and brings his teammates into play. In this way, he can also make the crucial difference defensively: the defenders don’t have to play their way out from behind in a risky manner, but can fire in his direction under high pressure and he takes care of it the rest. A boon for any central defender.

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But he also wins one duel after the next against the ball – above all, he leads an extremely large number of duels. In particular, he asserts himself well in the air, but he’s also on his toes when it comes to pressing: his 49 duels on the first two match days are top values ​​for Bremen. With 28 duels per 90 minutes in the previous season, he also brings a whole new intensity to the Dortmund game: his new strike colleague Sebastien Haller only had 21 duels in 90 minutes, Youssoufa Moukoko even two fewer. Filling jug causes constant stress for the opponent.

And he always wins the ball. Last season he won 47 percent of his duels for the ball for a striker – in the current season he was even able to win an outstanding 29 of his 49 duels – that results in a duel quota of around 59 percent . This puts him in the top 3 of the storm duellists, with Luca Pfeiffer (67 percent) and Davie Selke (65 percent) each having fewer than 20 duels.

Niclas Füllkrug did not follow the usual career path of top stars and top scorers. After a strong youth at Werder Bremen, he was unable to assert himself with the professionals for several seasons and was loaned to SpVgg Greuther Fürth in 2013/14. There he impressed with good performances and then switched to 1. FC Nürnberg. After a good year with only three goals but seven assists, things really got going for him in the second year: he scored 14 goals for Nuremberg and, like in Fürth, fought for relegation. But like the cloverleaf, his club failed against the first division team.

But for Füllkrug, after a very strong season, it went one step further: to Hannover 96. He also played a decent season there, but it was enough for promotion in the team. And in the second year he proved it as a climber in the upper house: 14 goals also ensured that Hannover 96 stayed up in 2017/18. In the following season, “Lücke” was out for a long time due to cartilage damage and was only able to play 14 games. It went down again for 96.

But then there was the opportunity to complete an unclosed chapter: In the summer of 2019 he returned to his youth club SV Werder Bremen. Again he immediately showed that he can help – but was held back by injuries. Four goals in eight games in 2019/20 and six in 19 games in 2020/21 clearly indicated his potential. But even if Bremen had to return to the 2nd Bundesliga in 2021, Füllkrug was now healthy and in top form: After an uneven start with ten games without a goal, his turbo ignited. In the following 23 appearances he scored a strong 19 goals – 14 of them in the second half of the season, a personal record of the season. He also scored six more goals – that was also a personal record.

It is well known where that led in the past season: As a promoted player, Füllkrug smashed the Bundesliga, got the top scorer… and played his way into the German national team! The snapper doesn’t stop at world-class level either: he scored two strong goals in three substitutions at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Overall, Niclas Füllkrug has scored seven goals in nine games for the DFB team – one goal every 51 minutes. If he snaps for Borussia Dortmund anywhere near this frequency, he will play for the top scorer again in 2023/24, despite a small “false start”! He already showed in 2021/22 that he can handle late starts…

Nicholas Staiger