Niklas Süle

The 28-year-old defender has been under contract with Borussia Dortmund since July 2022. As of June 2024 (reference date for all stats), he has made 72 appearances (3 goals / 4 assists) for BVB across all competitions.

He left the south for the "South". It was at the age of 17 that Niklas Süle – at the time as a TSG Hoffenheim player – felt the power of the Yellow Wall for the first time. Nine years later, in the summer of 2022, he himself became a Black & Yellow player. "There's no more emotion-packed stadium in the world! And the fact that I am playing for BVB now means a lot to me," he told the members' magazine Borussia (July 2022 issue).

Süle was born in Frankfurt am Main. He grew up a little further south in Mörfelden-Walldorf (Groß-Gerau district) and has a brother, Fabian, who is three years older. His first club was Rot-Weiß Walldorf. GQ writes: When the two of them were still children, Niklas seven, Fabian 10, things got heated at home in dad Georg's garden. "Our father put up a goal. Before we started, he watered the grass and said: ‘Now Anfield is ready. Now you can slide in,’ Niklas Süle recalled. "Those were battles between the two of us."

At the age of just 11, Niklas went to Eintracht Frankfurt (2006 to 2009), then to SV Darmstadt 98, where he only stayed for six months before moving to boarding school at TSG Hoffenheim at the beginning of 2010. "That was a very big step! As a youngster, you're already training like a professional and have to manage school at the same time," he told the members' magazine Borussia (July 2022 issue). Süle was promoted to Hoffenheim's second team for the 2012/13 season, where he made his first appearances in the Regionalliga Südwest and also played for the U19s. "I was in the middle of preparing for my secondary school leaving certificate and I remember sitting at lunch with the other lads when our coach Markus Gisdol told me: 'Niklas, you're playing tomorrow!’ In the Bundesliga! Against the mighty HSV! Madness!" Süle's Bundesliga debut on Matchday 33 of the 2012/13 season ended in a 4-1 home defeat. In order to avoid direct relegation, his team had to win in Dortmund in the final game of the season and were actually 2-1 up after two penalty goals in the closing stages, "and then I was brought on. With six minutes to go, for the current world star Roberto Firmino. You have to imagine that, in the most important game in the club's history up to that point, in this cauldron, the coach throws me, a 17-year-old, into the fray."

In December 2014, the towering 195 cm tall defender tore his cruciate ligament. He returned to the pitch after an eight-month injury lay-off and completed 33 of 34 the games in the following season, playing the full 90 minutes in each of them. With 6.2 successfully defused situations per game, he was the "most effective defender in the league" according to the magazine "11 FREUNDE". For the 2017/18 season, Süle signed a five-year contract with Bayern Munich. He won the German Championship five times (from 2018 to 2022), the DFB-Pokal twice (2019 and 2020), and also lifted the UEFA Champions League and the FIFA Club World Cup (both in 2020). With the national team, he won the Confederations Cup in 2017 and the silver medal at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. "The final in the sold-out Maracana against Brazil was one of my coolest football experiences ever! We were there with a team that nobody thought we could beat, and yet we marched through to the final. The medal has a very special place in my home." In October 2019, he suffered a second rupture of the cruciate ligament and was out until August 2020.

Süle has been wearing Black & Yellow since 2022. Here, he is used as a centre-back or as a right-back. The defender could have celebrated twice as many as the three goals he has scored in BVB colours if there had not been a post or a bar in the way on five occasions. He is heavily involved in build-up play (in 2023/24, he enjoyed an average of 101 touches per 90 minutes), finds a teammate with 94 percent of his passes, and is exceptionally quick (34.6 km/h), despite his height of 6'4" (195 cm). And he's an extremely fair player: in the last Bundesliga season, he committed only 10 fouls in 23 games and has not seen a single yellow card in his last 29 Bundesliga games across the last two seasons. He has never been suspended in his Bundesliga career.