The most discussed player in Germany is currently not the new signing Luis Diaz by Bayern Munich, nor is the multi -year top scorer Harry Kane. Both scaled the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup when Bayern won, but all eyes were aimed at the striker who was still wearing a Stuttgart shirt.
Nick Woltemade is a target for Bayern after a good first season in Stuttgart, in which he scored 17 goals before he became the top scorer at the European Under-21 Championship in the summer. He made his senior debut for Germany just before that.
Such things do not go unnoticed in Bayern, as their former striker Claudio Pizarro explains. “If a German player is doing well, then Bayern is like:” Okay, the spotlight is out. “” Woltemade stood in those spotlights before, during and after Saturday's showpiece opener.
Although he was denied a goal from close by by Manuel Neuer, he impressed. Dayot Upamecano, the physical Bayern-Centrum-Rug, marked him closely, but Woltemade showed that he was ready for the fight and kept the ball good for Stuttgart.
“I feel that Nick is very strong in times like this,” says Atakan Karazor, his captain of Stuttgart. But it is difficult to overestimate the pressure on Woltemade in Germany. Stuttgart holds, but his agent keeps talking. And keep pushing Bayern.
Speaking with Jurgen Klinsmann, the former German international who made his name in Stuttgart before he finally plays for Bayern, there is nothing but empathy. “It is a very logical order of thoughts that happen to you,” Klinsmann explains.
“When a large team like Bayern Munich is right at your door, there is a simple question that you have to ask yourself. Woltemade is probably in his house or talks to his family or whoever he talks.” What if I don't do that? What happens if I don't? “
“I think the answer is already there. I think in every profession that you want to do the best you can do. It's just in your human nature because you want to drive to play for the greatest possible team there. [fight] against that. “
What is it all about? Well, there are not many attackers who stand on 6'6 “long and have the kind of power that Woltemade has. The good foot-for-a-man-cliché may have been invented for him. Cacau, the legendary Stuttgart striker, summarizes it.
“He is a great player,” Cacau tells Sky Sports. “He can score goals, but he can also give assists. And he is a perfect player for Stuttgart, the perfect number nine. He plays very unconventional because he is long, but he is also technical. Very, very good.”
Strange, given his huge frame, Woltemade completed 31 dribbles in the Bundesliga last season. He is much more than a mere goalkeeper, even if he clearly has the potential to fulfill that function. He can also roam wide, fall deeply, bring others into play.
“Everyone can also see their dribbling and their technology,” says Karazor. A modern twist on the big striker, then. And yet it is this feeling that he is a return to the past of the past who helps explain his allure in Germany, a country that still longs for such players.
“You see the history of the German strikers, they are always tough, big boys, who score many goals,” says Pizarro. “And in recent years you have not seen that much. So I think it will be something special to get such a player back to Germany team.”
Klinsmann agrees. “This number of nines, at the global level, they are very, very rare. They have very few countries. We love numbering in Germany, so it's a big hope because it is still a very important position to fill.”
There is a lot left for him to learn. He only signed for Stuttgart last summer – and that on the back of a season in which he scored twice in 30 Bundesliga performances for Werder Bremen. Pizarro was once a teammate of him there even though he was twice as old.
“I know him very well. I played with him when he was 17. When I was there, I was the experienced man. He didn't speak much to me. I tried to talk to him, but he was really quiet, but a nice guy. And I could see how he improved. I think he is something special.
Pizarro adds: “He still has to learn because he is really big, but sometimes he does not use his body as he could do, or he scores many goals with the head. But as I said, he still needs a little time to improve in some things, but I think he is a great player.”
There is a feeling that for the time being improvement is most likely to happen in Stuttgart, where he would remain an important player, who regularly starts in both the Bundesliga and in Europe. It is there, in the Swabian Club, that he lifted the German cup in May.
At Bayern there is the prospect that he fits the team at Kane, especially after the injury to Jamal Musiala and the exit of Thomas Muller. “It can be an option,” says Pizarro. “You can see that he can play anywhere around the front half in the field.”
But the long -term ambition would be that he takes Kane's cloak as the most important striker of Bayern. The question that everyone in Germany asks is when that journey should start. “Stuttgart is still a place where he can learn more,” Pizarro adds. But how long?
“It is a big challenge for him and for Stuttgart because it is a new situation for the player and the club and to manage everything is not easy,” says Cacau. “I hope he can play for another year. And then he can leave for Bayern or maybe a Premier League club.”
Until then, all eyes are on every movement of Nick Woltemade.