Nick Woltemade

Nick Woltemade's rise carries a familiar shape until one moment breaks the pattern. At Werder Bremen, where he progressed through the youth ranks after arriving from TS Woltmershausen, he made his senior debut in January 2020 aged 17 years and 352 days, becoming the club's youngest-ever player at the time. Appearances came slowly at first: 48 league games and two goals across four seasons. The turn came on loan at SV Elversberg in the 3. Liga, where he scored 10 goals in 31 matches and helped push the club up to the 2. Bundesliga, a season strong enough to earn him the division's Player of the Season award.

Free to leave Bremen in 2024, he signed a four-year contract at VfB Stuttgart and delivered immediately: 12 goals in 29 league appearances and a DFB-Pokal winner's medal. His name attached itself to that final for another reason. After scoring against Arminia Bielefeld, he went to console the beaten side, and the gesture earned him the DFB Fair Play Medal months later.

That season persuaded Newcastle United to pay a club-record fee, reported at around €85 million plus add-ons, to bring him to St James' Park in August 2025. He needed no time to settle: within his first three matches he became only the third player in Newcastle's history to score in each of them, and the first to find the net on both his Premier League and Champions League debuts. Internationally, he was joint-top scorer at the 2025 European Under-21 Championship with six goals, including a hat-trick against Slovenia, and has since scored four times in twelve appearances for Germany's senior side.