Füllkrug tops the charts and gets tongues wagging as World Cup nears

Trust Florentino Pérez to mistime a Super League-based intervention. On a weekend in which Real Madrid’s dogged president talked about “our beloved sport” being “sick” – though his perception of its malaise is very different kind than what many of us would deem are the residual problems – Germany had plenty to delight and surprise quite apart from Bayern Munich steadying themselves from their recent stumble.

It’s best told through a tale of two centre-forwards. Niclas Füllkrug woke up on Monday as the Bundesliga’s top scorer while Anthony Modeste – remember only Robert Lewandowski, Patrik Schick and Erling Haaland bettered the French striker’s tally for Köln in the last campaign – is under pressure from all sides. Of course, Bayern resumed normal service on Friday night against Bayer Leverkusen but there was little else following reasoned prediction.

You would walk a long way to find someone not happy for Füllkrug as he enjoys his purple patch. If Werder Bremen one of the revelations from the season’s opening weeks (collectively, only Bayern on the back of their early-season goal rampages have scored more Bundesliga goals than Werder), their man at the sharp end is just that in individual form. It’s not that nobody thought he could do it. It’s that we never thought he’d be able to.

The typical towering, bustling No 9, Füllkrug has shown potential for years but his route to success has not been easy, and it has often seemed like luck has conspired against him. After coming through Werder’s youth academy, he made his way through Greuther Fürth, Nürnberg and Hannover before establishing himself as a capable top-flight goalscorer at the latter, his hometown club, in his mid-20s. Then, he was struck down by another knee