Should a 2. Bundesliga striker be playing for Germany?
Is a player ever really far too good for the second tier but not close to good enough for the first?
It’s been a while, apologies! Let’s just say I’ve had a busy few weeks.
In return, there are two newsletters in the pipeline this week. One on the Bundesliga’s newest star as his international career begins, and this one, on the 2. Bundesliga’s greatest ever goalscorer.
Can any footballer really be so good that they completely dominate the second division in a country but can’t make any sort of mark, at all, on the top flight?
“I didn’t really think about it. Obviously you’d hope to grab a goal at 2-0. When you’re 2-0 up at home, you couldn’t imagine a better setting,” Simon Terodde said on Sunday, minutes after writing his name into the German football record books.
The striker had just netted his 153rd 2. Bundesliga goal, becoming the second tier’s joint all-time top goalscorer. It won’t take him long to take the record outright, Terodde has a goal every 72 minutes so far this season. But he has been handed just 58 Bundesliga appearances in his long career and found the back of the net just 10 times in those games. Why?
Terodde’s first regular taste of first team football came at Union Berlin a decade ago, he scored a respectable 23 in 87 league games before a move to Bochum. It was there that he became as much of a household name as a second division striker can be, netting 41 of Bochum’s 109 league goals during his two seasons at the club.
The answer for fallen giants VfB Stuttgart was clear when they landed in the 2. Bundesliga. This was the man they needed to fire them out of the league, the man who had scored against them in a DFB Pokal shock a year earlier. And he did just that, scoring 25 in 32 league games. But upon promotion, Terodde stopped scoring and then stopped getting picked. He had two in 15 appearances and was sold to struggling Köln in January 2017. There he started well, scoring five Bundesliga goals — half his all-time top flight tally — in his first five games … and then none in the next 10 as Köln were relegated. Terodde scored 29 the following season to take Köln straight back up.
And was then again relegated to being a squad player and scored just three times in the Bundesliga upon the club’s return. He hasn’t played in Germany’s top tier since June 2020 and he is only at Schalke now because Hamburger SV had written off his chances of ever succeeding at the top.
Hamburg, like Köln and like Stuttgart, are a huge club. Like Köln and like Stuttgart, they turned to Terodde to get them out of the second tier. But they only gave him a one-year contract and, as he was on his way to 24 goals last season, reportedly told him he’d only be rewarded with a new deal if the club failed to earn promotion. He is, after all, a second tier specialist.
That decision cost them his goals as another fallen giant, Schalke, hoped he would fire them to promotion instead. It wasn’t a bad bet. Schalke sit fourth in the table after nine games — more than a quarter of a 2. Bundesliga season — and Terodde has netted in eight of them, scoring 11 of the team’s 16 goals so far. Ridiculous even by his standards.
Now up to 153 goals in 262 2. Bundesliga games (and please bear in mind that Terodde has scored 114 in his last 130 appearances at that level after a comparatively slow start until his mid-20s) his quality is obvious yet he has never been close to translating it to top flight football.
He isn’t alone. Stefan Klos and Marvin Ducksch have been prolific in recent second tier campaigns but failed to make much of an impact when given a chance at the top level. But there are other strikers who have made the leap and impressed. Some — Sebastian Andersson, Jhon Cordoba — have been just as prolific post-promotion. Guido Burgstaller falls in both categories, impressing immediately after a transfer to top-flight Schalke, then struggling badly for an extended period before dropping back down to St. Pauli, who he has now fired to the top of the 2. Bundesliga table.
A number of those forwards, like Terodde, are generally classic number nines, he’s physical and has great movement in the penalty area but offers little to the team outside of it, not that that matters too much when he’s scoring in almost every game. More to the point, it’s not that those strikers can’t impress in the Bundesliga — Bas Dost is perhaps the best example of one who has in recent seasons — but maybe they need to play in particular teams to really flourish.
You want Terodde in the area. He scores his goals between the posts and from no more than 10 yards out. Simply put, teams that win promotion create those chances and teams fighting against relegation don’t. Teams win promotion by attacking and then revert to more defensive football in an attempt to survive. Despite his size, Terodde isn’t the man to lead the line alone for a team playing on the break, he’s a poacher.
“Had Simon played in the Bundesliga for a top team, he’d have got his goals, because he just needs those players who can create them,” Schalke legend and Germany grerat Klaus Fischer told Ruhr Nachrichten this week, before urging Hansi Flick to call the 33-year-old up for international duty.
“It just has to be possible. At the Euros this year, all eight quarter-finalists had a centre-forward in their side.”
Others have said a move to Bayern Munich as a player who could provide an emergency option from the bench should be considered by the German champions.
Regardless, all that matters to Terodde is goals and scoring them at whatever level he’s playing at. If he can add to his 153 in the 2. Bundesliga at any consistent rate he’ll have a great chance to earn a fourth golden boot at that level and a third promotion to the Bundesliga. And maybe, with that, one more chance at the top?