For 21 minutes, from the 62nd minute to the 83rd minute, the German team and their fans were sure they were on their way to another painful loss in Qatar. Alvaro Morata’s goal took the wind out of the Germans’ sails, but 7 minutes to the end the unexpected hero arrived – Niklas Pilkrug, who scored Germany’s equalizing goal.
He plays for Werder Bremen, is in third place on the list of Bundesliga scorers and is having a pretty crazy season. He has ten goals and 3 assists in all competitions in Germany and what is most impressive – he played seven seasons in the lower leagues of Germany, most recently just last season, together with his current team, Bremen.
In the other 8 seasons of his career, which he spent in the Bundesliga with Bremen and Hannover, the striker scored no less than 38 goals and added 7 assists, while in his record season in Hannover, in 2017/18, Pilkrog scored no less than 14 goals. Due to the not very high status of the teams he played for (such as Hannover, Nürnberg and Firth) and due to the fact that he spent about half of his career in the lower leagues, Philkrog never broke into consciousness.
Well, it can now be said that Philkrug has broken into the German consciousness. In just his third appearance for the German national team, Philkrug scored the goal that gave Germany a crucial point in their bid to qualify for the round of 16 in Qatar. This is only his second goal in the national team uniform and the first in a major tournament.