A year ago, nobody really knew who Nick Woltemade was. Not really. Nor what he was, or what he could become. Certainly nobody foresaw a €70million (£60m, $81m) transfer to the Premier League this summer.
Not much further back in time, Woltemade had decided to allow his Werder Bremen contract to lapse and was about to leave the Weserstadion for free. He had been at Bremen from childhood — nearly 15 years — and had represented Germany’s age group teams throughout his teens. During the 2019-20 season, aged 17, he even became the youngest player to appear in the Bundesliga for the club.
But a proper breakthrough in senior football remained elusive. In fact, it was only during his final month at Bremen that Woltemade became a consistent starter and only then, during a 2-2 draw with Borussia Monchengladbach, that he scored his first and only league goals for the club.
By then, he had decided that his future lay elsewhere: with Sebastian Hoeness and Stuttgart, who were heading to last season’s Champions League, and whose fast, intricate football had made them one of the most attractive and admired teams in Germany.
But Woltemade was hardly a headline signing. In July last year, he was added to an attack being rebuilt to cover the sale of Serhou Guirassy to Borussia Dortmund. Ermedin Demirovic was also signed for €23million from Augsburg, and he was the one considered the real Guirassy replacement, not the lanky boy from Bremen with the smart feet.
Now, though, that lanky boy from Bremen is a great hope for the German national team and a point of fascination. He is Wolte-messi — as he is known in Germany — and now about to become the most expensive player in Newcastle United’s history.
Eddie Howe has been seeking at least one striker all summer (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Is Woltemade worth the hype? Yes — but there are some caveats.
He is a rare forward, part-scorer, part-creator — somewhere between a No 9 and a No 10. One of the reasons why Bayern Munich took such an interest in him this summer, having three bids rejected (the highest of which was €60million), is because it’s possible to recognise a young Harry Kane in the way Woltemade plays. He scores goals, but he sees the game, too. No wonder Bayern saw him as a potential successor to the now 32-year-old England captain.
But Woltemade is his own player and, forgive the cliche, but his feet are outrageous for a player of his size. At 6ft 6in (198cm), he is hardly inconspicuous when he’s on the pitch, but he is elusive and technical, and has the ability to smuggle the ball away from defenders even when he seems cornered.
He’s a fine goalscorer, too. Not lethal. Not likely to break records, but certainly talented, and only likely to grow more efficient as he becomes more experienced. The way he scores has helped charm the Bundesliga. Given his dimensions, Woltemade looks like he should be an instrument of violence — a thumper, a back-post bully, a bowling ball who skittles defenders — but he often converts chances with great craft and imagination, and that spectacle has helped frame him as an unusual player.
The other dynamic at work is national context: the lack of an era-defining German centre-forward has been a topic in his home country for some time.
Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann has actually had the services of some very talented attacking players. Kai Havertz, Niclas Fullkrug, Deniz Undav and Tim Kleindienst have all played for the national team under him, and all of them to a high standard. Each has had the air of a temporary solution, though, to a footballing country used to permanence.
Woltemade has been compared to Kane and was wanted by Bayern (Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images)
Miroslav Klose, Jurgen Klinsmann, Rudi Voller, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Gerd Muller, Uwe Seeler. The lineage is rich and strong — and that’s perhaps where the warnings lie.
Germany wants a centre-forward it can be excited by and Woltemade — see that Wolte-messi nickname — has been seized upon and thrust into the role. His talent is worth the attention, absolutely, but some of the fuss is situational. His performances at this summer’s Under-21 European Championship, where he was top scorer with six goals, added to that clamour.
Woltemade’s scarcity makes the conversation louder; he does not really compare to anyone. Nobody in the Bundesliga has a similar profile, or combines size, skill and entertainment in quite the same way, so there is definitely a sense of the unusual with him, and the feeling — even at this stage of his career — that each appearance might deliver something new.
Does that mean anybody should be less excited? No. Newcastle are signing a wonderful player who could become anything he wants to. But everything has happened very quickly for Woltemade.
In the space of a year, he has played in his first two senior internationals, won the DFB-Pokal (Germany’s FA Cup) and now earned an enormous move to one of the Premier League’s top clubs.
He deserves that success, has earned it, but it has all come in a single season, in what feels like the blink of an eye.
(Top photo: Image Photo Agency/Getty Images)
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