Before retiring: bizarre revelation about BVB star Süle | OneFootball

Following the announced retirement of Niklas Süle, surprising details from his youth have come to light. The former BVB pro nearly ended up at 1. FC Nürnberg as a striker.

Niklas Süle will end his career this summer – bringing to a close a career path that could easily have taken a completely different turn. Long before the now central defender collected titles with FC Bayern Munich or played in the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund, a move to 1. FC Nürnberg was apparently on the cards. However, the club had surprisingly different plans for the then 14-year-old.

As Sport Bild reports, Süle had already agreed on a transfer with the Club in 2010. The Darmstadt 98 youth player at the time was not supposed to be developed as a defender in Franconia. Instead, Nürnberg planned to train the tall teenager as a striker.

In the end, however, the move still did not happen. According to the report, the decisive factor was that Süle did not get a place at the cooperating Bertolt Brecht School. His parents then prevented the move to Franconia. Instead, he later joined TSG Hoffenheim – initially also as an attacker.

Niklas Süle with a difficult spell at BVB

That Süle was once actually regarded as a goalscorer was confirmed years ago by his father Georg in an interview. “In the U9s, he scored 100 goals in one season,” he recalled at the time. It was only a personnel shortage in Hoffenheim’s youth setup that brought about the turning point. “Then the centre-backs in the U15s were out, Niklas filled in, headed everything away at the back and remained a centre-back.”

Photo: IMAGO

The position change turned out to be a stroke of luck. Via Hoffenheim, Süle made the leap to the Bundesliga before FC Bayern signed him in 2017. There, he won, among other things, five German championships as well as the Champions League in 2020. In 2022, the 49-time Germany international joined Borussia Dortmund on a free transfer.

At BVB, however, the 30-year-old was only rarely able to live up to the high expectations. Injuries and recurring discussions about fitness and weight accompanied the final years of his career. A few days ago, Süle finally made it public that he would end his career after the season. Thus ends the career of a player who almost ended up in Nürnberg as a striker – and instead became one of the most successful German footballers of his generation as a centre-back.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.