Why Hansi Flick started Joshua Zirkzee against Hoffenheim | OneFootball

Prior to Bayern’s 6-0 rout against Hoffenheim over the weekend, 18-year-old striker Joshua Zirkzee had made just five brief first-team appearances, scoring twice in his three previous Bundesliga appearances spanning an entire 11 minutes.

With Robert Lewandowski out, Zirkzee took full advantage of the situation and got his goal just 15 minutes into the match to give him goals with each of his first three shots on target in the league.

His three goals in his first 26 minutes of Bundesliga play nearly broke a record, something that Erling Haaland only needed 23 minutes to accomplish when the Norweigan came off the bench to score a hat-trick in his debut against Augsburg.

In his pre-match press conference ahead of their DFB Pokal quarter-final clash against Schalke, manager Hansi Flick explained his decision to give the teenage sensation his first-career start.

“The timing was exactly right. We didn’t want to change too much. Joshua Zirkzee is doing well in training and scoring a lot of goals, so I decided to let him step in for Lewandowski.

“Joshua’s performance [against Hoffenheim] was good, not top-notch, but pretty good. He scored a goal, which is important for a striker.

“He has plenty of room for improvement, though, and he knows that.”

Zirkzee has also proven himself at the youth international level, bagging eight goals in nine career appearances for the Netherlands U-19s.