5 things to know about Germany’s Euro 2024 super sub Niclas Fullkrug
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Germany's Niclas Fullkrug reacts after his Group A match against Switzerland on June 24.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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With the Germans staring at defeat against Switzerland on June 23, Niclas Fullkrug came off the bench to salvage a 1-1 draw in the Euro 2024 match
1. Not his first rodeo
Fullkrug, 31, has lived up to the “super sub” tag for his game-changing contributions off the bench multiple times in his career.
In a 2022 World Cup group match against Spain, his 83rd-minute goal, which arrived 13 minutes after he came on as a substitute, helped Germany snatch a 1-1 draw.
2. Creditable debut campaign in Champions League
Fullkrug played in the Champions League for the first time in the 2023-24 season, racking up three goals and two assists to help Borussia Dortmund reach the final of Europe’s elite club competition for the first time since 2013.
In the quarter-final, second leg against Atletico Madrid, his 71st-minute header gave Dortmund the crucial 3-2 lead, with his team eventually winning 4-2. He also scored in their 1-0 semi-final, first-leg win over Paris Saint-Germain to help his team advance to the final at the expense of the likes of Kylian Mbappe.
3. Late bloomer finding success
Fullkrug’s senior club career began with Werder Bremen’s reserves in 2011 when he was 18 years old, returning to the team in 2019 after spells with Greuther Furth, FC Nurnberg and Hannover 96.
However, his call-up to the senior national team came only in 2022, after racking up 10 goals in his first 14 matches of the 2022-23 Bundesliga.
Debuting and scoring as a substitute in a friendly against Oman in the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup, Fullkrug, then 29, became the oldest outfield player in 20 years to earn his first cap for Germany.
He has since amassed 13 goals in 19 international appearances.
4. Missing a tooth but not lacking in bite
The German has earned the nickname “Lucke”, meaning ‘gap’ in German, for good reason, sporting a visible gap in the top row of his teeth.
According to a 2023 interview, Fullkrug’s then-Werder Bremen teammate, Austrian Marko Arnautovic, was the one who gave him the nickname.
“I’m missing a tooth, and then I turned professional, and it didn’t bother me. I was positively treated and never had problems because of it,” he told bundesliga.com.
5. Married his childhood sweetheart
In 2016, Fullkrug married his wife Lisa after knowing each other since elementary school. They have a daughter, who was born in 2019. According to a 2018 interview with his then-team Hannover 96, he said that they hung out in a clique for a long time, but fell in love after spending time with just each other.
His wedding song, Picture Perfect by Charity Vance, was listed by Fullkrug as one of the songs he could not leave out from his personal playlist, alongside Bushido’s Schmetterling, a song loved by the couple.
