Ajax, Bayern, and now Rapid! Meet New Signing Nicolas Kühn

 SK Rapid are strengthening further for next season with the signing of 22-year-old German attacker Nicolas Kühn. The German youth international has a contract with Austria’s record champions which runs until summer 2026.

 From a young age, Kühn has been considered one of the brightest developing talents in the land of the 2014 World Champions, and his footballing CV shows where that early promise has taken him so far. The Lower Saxony native began at his local village club 1. FC Wunstorf, by the age of nine he was part of the youth program at FC St. Pauli, before moving to Hannover 96’s juniors. After four years there, he went to RB Leipzig and then in January 2018 the technically skilled attacker ventured abroad to join Ajax in Amsterdam.

 The New Year’s child (born January 1st, 2000) got his first taste of senior football with the legendary Dutch team, and in the second-tier in the Netherlands he made a total of 43 appearances over two years. In 2019 he received the Fritz Walter Medal in Gold, the highest possible individual award for talented young players in Germany, following in the footsteps of players such as Kai Havertz, Julian Brandt, Timo Werner, Leon Goretzka and Mario Götze. At the beginning of 2020, the German record champions FC Bayern secured the services of the highly talented player, initially on loan. In Munich, the player from Lower Saxony was used exclusively in the second team and, among other things, was part of the side which triumphed in the German third division in the 2019/20 season. A first team breakthrough at FC Bayern, however, remained elusive and so Kühn moved on loan last summer to the German second division club Erzgebirge Aue. In the past season, he played a total of 27 games in the second German Bundesliga, in which he scored three goals and assisted four. SK Rapid now becomes the second foreign destination in the 22-year-old’s career.

Sports Coordinator Steffen Hofmann is equally pleased with the new signing from FC Bayern Munich: "Nicolas is an incredibly exciting player who, despite his young age, has already played for top clubs like Ajax and Bayern Munich. The fact that he was also awarded the Golden Fritz Walter Medal shows that he can play really well. I'm very pleased that exactly 20 years after I moved from Bayern Munich to SK Rapid, another player is now going down this path and I hope he makes his final breakthrough with us."

Nicolas Kühn on his transfer: "I'm very happy that the transfer has come about and I'm already looking forward enormously to the new challenge and the upcoming tasks with my teammates. Rapid is the biggest club in Austria and I will do everything I can to ensure that we are successful both nationally and internationally. I would like to thank the club for their trust and the great discussions I had with them, and I can't wait to play in front of these special fans - Together, we’ll fight and we’ll win!"

Fotos: Red Ring Shots