Borussia Dortmund striker Niclas Füllkrug believes that playing in front of a home crowd will be an advantage for his side against AC Milan tomorrow night.
At 30 years of age Füllkrug earned himself a move to Dortmund during the summer window, after he scored 16 goals and added six assists for Werder Bremen last season. He even drew links with Milan given they were in the market for a striker as well.
At the beginning of the 2022–23 Bundesliga season, he scored 10 goals in 14 matches which was enough to convince Hansi Flick to call him up for the German national team squad for the World Cup in November.
Füllkrug spoke at a press conference on the eve of the match against Milan and his comments were relayed by our colleagues at SempreMilan.it, who are in Dortmund to cover the game.
“I think we have excellent defenders in our league, very physical. The Italian sides sit deep and defend with patience. We will prepare as best we can. We have our strategy and our ideas. With the right concentration we can play with everyone,” he said.
“I’m happy we won the last three games. It will be a fantastic experience. We scored points in the league, last year we did well. We developed in a certain direction, many said that we did it unconsciously, we were criticised.
“But we have mental and self-confidence, which is very important. We played well against Hoffenheim and it shows us that we can have confidence in ourselves. We have excellent players. Winning is always nice.
“It will be a different match here, I’m happy to be here, it will be special. I don’t think about the advantages, it matters how you deal with it.
“We must try to win. I don’t think about it [the pressure of playing at home]. It will be a fantastic experience for me. Even my team-mates told me that it will be more special than the Bundesliga.”