Wolfsburg (AP) – Wolfsburg striker Wout Weghorst may still be missing one thing in addition to his luck as a footballer: These are a few career data that his next opponent André Silva has to show.
The Eintracht Frankfurt striker plays regularly in the Portuguese national team and made it to a world club like AC Milan in 2017. Strictly speaking, Silva is more of an example that such an ambitious change can sometimes go badly in the pants. But Weghorst, who is already 28 years old, would at least like to try that one day.
On Friday (8.30 p.m. / DAZN), VfL Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt will play against each other in the Bundesliga. And just how much the two goal scorers shape the game of their clubs can be seen from the list of goalscorers. Weghorst and the currently somewhat ailing Silva (muscular problems) belong to the “Best of the Rest” behind the exceptional strikers Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich / 12 goals) and Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund / 10). With seven goals, they each scored almost half of all their team’s goals.
In one statistic, the 25-year-old Silva is even better than Weghorst, Andrej Kramaric (1899 Hoffenheim / 7) or even Haaland: Since the Bundesliga restart in May, only Lewandowski (21) has scored more goals than the attacker from Baguim do Monte in northern Portugal (15). «The fact is that he has a great record when you see his playing time and the goals. He may not be perceived that way in public either, because it makes a difference whether I play for Bayern or Dortmund, ”said his coach Adi Hütter.
The top of the list of goalscorers also says a lot about the importance of the Bundesliga compared to the top international leagues or: who gets into the Bundesliga and who doesn’t. Superstar Cristiano Ronaldo announced Silva as his designated successor three years ago (“If I step down, Portugal will be in good hands because the team has already found a great striker”). Eintracht Frankfurt could never have afforded a player like him if he hadn’t failed with a big name like AC Milan. The same applies to 1899 Hoffenheim and the Croatian vice world champion Kramaric, who also did not get along in the English Premier League at Leicester City.
Weghorst and Haaland went the other way into the Bundesliga: They came from a much smaller league in a neighboring country. Since moving from AZ Alkmaar, the Dutchman Weghorst has already scored 40 Bundesliga goals in just two and a half years and has even overtaken today’s Frankfurt Bas Dost in the list of record goal scorers of his club. He needed a full four years for his 36 goals in the Wolfsburg jersey.
No wonder that Weghorst has long been trusted to take the next step in his career – even if he has meanwhile hardly been noticed by several Dutch national coaches. This summer there was talk of an interest from Arsenal FC and its London rival Tottenham Hotspur. “The Premier League is still a dream of mine,” said the striker in a kicker interview in October. «If one day I have the feeling that I cannot achieve my goals at VfL, then I will say so. But that is currently not the case. “
Weghorst would like to change again, but doesn’t have to do so at any cost. And the Frankfurt Silva can understand that after his experiences at AC Milan and FC Sevilla. “So far it has not been easy for me to play consistently at a high level because you have to be constant with a club,” he said. “But if you keep changing, the elevator goes down.”
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