If a tent in the desert does not sound like the most glamorous of stages on which to score your first World Cup goal, then consider that Niclas Fullkrug only made the least heralded of international debuts a fortnight ago — as a half-time substitute in a scarcely-acknowledged tournament warm-up against Oman.
That, by then, he had already been assigned Germany’s No9 shirt for a major tournament speaks volumes about Hansi Flick’s centre-forward strife, but here last night, Fullkrug lived up to the jersey with a fine equaliser to cancel out Alvaro Morata’s opener for Spain and strengthen the four-times champions’ hopes of avoiding another humiliating group-stage exit.
