In Muscat’s “Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex” on Wednesday evening (November 16, 2022, 6 p.m., in the audio stream and live ticker at sportschau.de), it will be decided whether Niclas Füllkrug and/or Youssoufa Moukoko will succeed Oliver Kahn.
The goalkeeping legend, now CEO of FC Bayern Munich, took part in the 1994 World Cup without having previously played an international match with the senior national team.
Should Füllkrug and/or Moukoko be used in the friendly against Oman, they will succeed national players such as Uwe Reinders, Paul Steiner, Shkodran Mustafi, Erik Durm and David Odonkor, who each made one appearance at the World Cup and then very different ones wrote stories.
World champions and great moments in the group phase
Durm became world champion in Brazil in 2014 without playing a minute. After all, he later came to another six international matches. Steiner, then a defender at 1. FC Köln, only played one friendly, but he too has been world champion since July 8, 1990, when Germany beat Argentina 1-0 in the final.
David Odonkor has 16 international caps, he finished third at the 2006 World Cup. But it was this one moment that made him famous. Odonkor sprints down the right side, gets the ball through, crosses in immediately, Oliver Neuville scores in added time to make it 1-0 against Poland and fuels the euphoria that had already arisen before the second group game, but with a disdainful 0-0 against Poland would have been dampened.
Füllkrug hopes for his moment
Niclas Füllkrug turns 30 in February. He has survived several cartilage damage in his knees, the cruciate ligament rupture suffered in 2019 forced him to take a break of almost nine months. Füllkrug is more likely to hope for those one or more such moments than Moukoko, who turns just 18 on Sunday (11/20/2022), the day of the opening game.
“You need every player at every second in a tournament like this. It doesn’t matter how long the individual ultimately plays.”said Füllkrug at a press conference before the game in Oman.
Füllkrug benefits from the 26 squad
Unlike Odonkor’s nomination in 2006, Füllkrug’s was no surprise. This is also due to the fact that, unlike his predecessor Joachim Löw, Flick was allowed to name 26 instead of 23 players at the time, but above all because of the consistently good feeling that a striker who scores regularly has.
With 19 goals, Füllkrug contributed to Werder Bremen’s promotion to the Bundesliga, and this season’s ten goals meant that Bremen went into the winter break in ninth place in the table.
Füllkrug brings power and final strength
In the calendar year 2022 there are 24 goals for the striker, who also played for SpVgg Greuther Fürth, 1. FC Nürnberg and Hannover 96, all big clubs without exception, but never at their heyday.
Just like an international match, Füllkrug has been missing a European game in his career so far. Why Flick nominated him anyway: “He brings certain qualities that we don’t have in this form.” The national coach said that at the beginning of October and thus took away any element of surprise from the nomination.
A center forward with power, good header play and a finishing strength that is currently important because this center forward scores and has a good feeling with it.
Hardly any time to get used to it
His advantage in the likely role of “Joker” over Moukoko, who has six goals this season in the Bundesliga, should be ten centimeters tall. Both newcomers have the disadvantage that they trained with the senior national team for the first time in the Omani capital Muscat on Tuesday and only have a few days left before the first group match at the World Cup against Japan on November 23.
The theory of football is therefore of great importance. He talks a lot with the trainers, tries to learn from videos in which rooms he should move and primarily stay. Füllkrug himself listed the disadvantage compared to Moukoko, who was last used as a central striker at Borussia Dortmund: “I’ve played in a 3-5-2 system in Bremen for a year and a half now.”
Füllkrug will have to do without his Bremen strike partner Marvin Ducksch in Qatar. Füllkrug has adapted to the role of “joker” for or next to Kai Havertz, who should be set for the starting XI: “As a striker you have other options if you’re not there from the start. Sometimes it’s about changes in the game. I could be that change.”