Only Harry Kane is better! A former right-back has suddenly become Germany’s second-highest goalscorer

Few fans recognise his name, yet he finds the net almost as often as Harry Kane: an unexpected leader now tops the 2. Bundesliga scoring charts.

Most German football fans know that Bayern’s Harry Kane currently leads the Bundesliga’s scoring charts. But who sits atop the 2. Bundesliga’s goalscoring table? That’s a detail many do not have on their radar.

Unlike in the Premier League, the top scorer here plies his trade for the team in sixteenth place. He has found the net 17 times in 18 appearances so far—an impressive return of a goal every 93 minutes. In the three German professional divisions, only the aforementioned Kane (a goal every 65 minutes) has a better ratio, while Kane’s closest pursuer, Deniz Undav of VfB Stuttgart, manages a strike only every 106 minutes.

The man in question is Mateusz Zukowski of 1. FC Magdeburg. The 24-year-old Pole has netted just over 35 per cent of his club’s goals and chipped in with three assists, keeping the relegation-threatened side afloat.

Anyone who assumes Zukowski is merely enjoying a hot streak, as many strikers occasionally do, should know that Magdeburg signed him last summer as a right-back—and he was already carrying a metatarsal fracture.