Deniz Undav comes off the bench to turn the game against Ivory Coast and is Germany's standout player of the World Cup so far. He's also the most unusual player in the squad – and soon a starter?
Toronto, just after the hour. Germany are 1-0 down against Ivory Coast, the game won't click, and Julian Nagelsmann makes his changes. Among the players he brings on is Deniz Undav. He makes it 1-1, and just as everyone is settling for a draw, in the fourth minute of stoppage time, 2-1. Two goals, Man of the Match, Germany into the round of 32. Nagelsmann calls him a “brutal finisher” afterwards.
In the game before, the 7-1 win over Curaçao, Undav had also come off the bench, scored and set up two more. At this World Cup, that's his role: the substitute who scores the goals that matter.
Why Deniz Undav Is the Most Unusual Player in Germany's Squad
What stands out about Undav is how little fuss he makes about himself. Many players of his generation work on their own brand and think carefully about how they come across. Undav stands out by doing none of that and not putting on an act. For a long time he didn't have an Instagram account; today he posts the football side and keeps his private life off there.
The clearest example is a plastic bag. He has turned up to national team camp carrying his boots in a simple plastic bag, and whether it was from a drugstore, Aldi or a supermarket made no difference to him. At earlier camps, even a bin liner did the job. While others arrive with designer bags, all that mattered to him was that the boots fit.
That doesn't mean he goes without luxury. Undav loves fast, flashy cars, he listens to hard rap, and when his taste for luxury became a talking point, his answer was short: what he does privately is his own business. Down-to-earth and yet with a taste for luxury, both go together for him, and he apologises for neither.
Even his goal celebration has a backstory. After scoring, Undav regularly flexes his muscles like a boxer, inspired by the song “Champion” by rapper Luciano, which he has listened to since his time in Meppen. No rehearsed marketing pose, just whatever he feels like.
From Machine Operator in Non-League to a World Cup Player for Germany
That he is even here, at a World Cup, in the shirt of the German national team, would have seemed impossible a few years ago. At Werder Bremen he was released as a teenager, too small to make the step into the professional game. Money was tight, so Undav trained as a machine operator to take the pressure off his parents, and played non-league football on the side. There was a time he thought about quitting.
Instead came SV Meppen in the third division, then Belgium, where he became top scorer with Union Saint-Gilloise, then England and Brighton, and finally VfB Stuttgart. There the late bloomer turned into a goalscorer. Last season he scored 19 times in the Bundesliga, second on the scoring charts behind Harry Kane and the best tally of any German player. He made his international debut at 27, late for a striker, but by now he has become indispensable to the German team.
So now he is at the World Cup, and the question Nagelsmann himself raised is in the air: will it soon be enough for a starting place? Undav will likely take it in his stride. He has come a long way, and he never had to put on an act to do it.
