Niclas Füllkrug in top form: Returning at full steam

It doesn't happen that often that coaches formulate such beautiful images as Daniel Thioune did after SV Werder's away win at FSV Mainz 05 (3:2), when the Bremen coach spoke about his double goalscorer Niclas Füllkrug: "He's sitting on the locomotive right now and is pulling a lot of people along." Niclas the locomotive driver. Füllkrug, 33, scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season in a varied game with two safely converted penalties (7th and 25th) and impressed with his presence, understanding of the game and commitment.

"The boy has endless energy. He's good for us. As a team, we thrive on his mentality," said Thioune. The loan deal with West Ham United turns into a touching love story that shows the whole club in a different light. With the best start to the season in eight years and the advance to sixth place, tender dreams of a return to the European Cup are blooming on the Weser.

The newly formed team plays with a finesse and intensity that they haven't played in a long time. The Hanover native Füllkrug is also leading the way in this respect: he led 150 tackles and made 15 fouls – the most in the league. What Füllkrug is most happy about right now is the eleven kilometers he ran in 90 minutes. Because it shows him that he is perhaps fitter than ever before in his career.

He has “the same weight as he did eight or nine years ago,” but the fact that he couldn’t really gain a foothold either in London or on loan at AC Milan had to do with “the fact that I didn’t get the consistency in my body and my game.” And what is also different compared to the Premier League and Serie A: “Back then I had 25 ball contacts, now there are 55 to 60 ball actions.” Because Werder wants to play the game again, at least in phases.

In Bremen's oasis of well-being, a win-win situation was quickly created for everyone involved. The returnee leads the Bundesliga top scorers list as clearly as only Harry Kane and distributes the balls from a deeper position as skillfully as the English world-class striker, although he vigorously contradicted the theory that he positioned himself significantly differently.

But his shirt number ten provides a clue that the new version of this professional is a playmaker in disguise. If he were to score for the seventh time in a row in the next home game against TSG Hoffenheim, he would have equaled Rudi Völler's Bremen record from the 1982/83 season.

Füllkrug first explained why everything was going so well in the Mainz Mixed Zone and then also in the ZDF “Sportstudio”. Today he puts “zero point zero pressure on himself to have to prove anything to anyone.” He doesn't sit in front of his cell phone in the evenings and look at the list of top scorers, "really not."

He deals with a topic in a relaxed manner that inevitably surrounds him: the return to the German national team, which could really use a goal guarantee in the last Nations League games against Serbia (November 13th) and the Netherlands (November 16th). Although Füllkrug didn't want to say much about it, he did refer to Jürgen Klopp's recent statement: "He listed facts, nothing more. I'm 33 and I score one goal after the other. That was without an opinion."

Later on ZDF he added that the national coach had made a pretty clear statement about the long-term realignment with young, dynamic players: “Everyone can interpret what they want to interpret.”

In any case, Klopp's assistant coach Peter Krawietz saw in Mainz that Füllkrug never rests. After the final whistle he argued with hothead Nadiem Amiri to protect his teammate Cedric Itten; was angry after his substitution because, exhausted, he actually wanted to leave the field earlier.

So all is well with his coach Thioune, who was particularly happy about the development in the game with the ball. The dominant first half hour with an outstanding Mitchell Weiser, who initiated both penalty situations in his first starting eleven appearance in 525 days, also impressed the more than 5,000 Werder supporters who traveled with him.

When the strong central defenders Amos Pieper and Marco Friedl spoke about Werder's transformation, Füllkrug called out to them that they deserved the "Player of the Match" award. “I love those guys back there.” A similar defensive stance will probably be needed in the DFB Cup game against Borussia Dortmund (Tuesday 8:45 p.m. / ZDF and Sky), but the most recent Bundesliga game with the Black and Yellows can serve as a blueprint. The Green-Whites managed to make it 2-2 after 88 minutes when they were 0-2. Last goalscorer? Filling jug, of course. Niclas the locomotive driver.