David Raum #22

Profile

There is one title Raum definitely holds: that of the most tattooed German international. His chest reads “Living the dream” – because he gets to be a professional footballer. At one point he had almost given up on that dream, as he recounted in a YouTube video published by his club RB Leipzig. Because he was not always playing at Greuther Fürth, he thought: “OK, maybe football isn’t going to work out after all.” But his career took off after he joined Hoffenheim on a free in 2021 before RB Leipzig paid €26m for him a year later. He started every game for Germany at the World Cup in Qatar, then lost his place, then won it back. Julian Nagelsmann, values him for his fighting spirit, among other things. Raum’s strengths are in attack as he is capable of whipping in cross after cross, though a fair few of them end up missing their targets. After his career he wants nothing more to do with football. Instead, he could imagine working as a DJ.

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