Kovac lauds Felix Nmecha after breakthrough performance: "He never got into a rhythm before."
Some were surprised when VfL Wolfsburg head-coach Niko Kovac declared that the often overlooked younger Nmecha brother was his best player on the pitch during last week's 2-2 draw with Leverkusen.
No one would count themselves startled to hear the same this this week after the 22-year-old bagged a brace in his side's 4-0 victory over Bochum.
No one would count themselves startled to hear the same this this week after the 22-year-old bagged a brace in his side's 4-0 victory over Bochum.
| Niko Kovac. | Photo: Sven Mandel / CC-BY-SA-4.0 |
Always modest about his own talents and pleased to be playing along his sibling's side, the 22-year-old Felix didn't have much to say about what was definitely a breakthrough performance. For Felix, it's merely about being in the right place. He did come within a hair of assisting Lukas on a chance in the second half.
"I just keep going and trying," Nmecha said of his sudden emergence, "Times like last year when I didn't play so much didn't bring me down."
Nmecha did make 16 league appearances last year under the VfL coaching regimes of Mark van Bommel and Florian Kohfeldt. He nevertheless only featured in the starting XI once, something he's done for Kovac now two matches running.
"He has improved physically," Kovac said of his "man-of-the-moment","Previously, he never got into a rhythm. He played in so many different positions. Now he's playing in midfield and you can see his technical ability."
In general, Kovac had many flattering words for how his team performed. The fact that the two Nmecha brothers were on the pitch from the start together for only the second time since they both joined the club appeared to play on his mind when speaking about the overall coordination within the team.
The passion and mentality that we talked about at the beginning has been on the right level for six or seven games," Kovac remarked to Sky Germany in his post-match interview, "Now the quality of play is added and one or the other understands what we would like. And that produces such beautiful games."