The meteoric rise of Sarpreet Singh has continued with the All Whites midfielder making his eagerly-awaited Bundesliga debut for the Bayern Munich first team on Saturday, coming on with eight minutes remaining of their 6-1 win over Werder Bremen.

The identity of the opposition was fitting as Singh became just the second New Zealander to ever feature in the German top flight after Oceania Player of the Century Wynton Rufer, who starred for Bremen from 1989 to 1995.

The illustrious nature of the company he is now keeping was underlined by the fact that he replaced Brazilian superstar Philippe Coutinho, who notched a hat-trick and two assists in the convincing win.

Singh later alluded to his pride at making his debut on social media, saying it was  “a dream come true”.

It is the latest step in the remarkable journey the Auckland-born 20-year-old has been on over the past six months, since moving from the Wellington Phoenix to join one of the world’s biggest clubs.

The only other man to have been in anything like Singh’s shoes is delighted to see the young star following in his footsteps.

“In terms of turnover, the four biggest clubs in the world are Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich,” Rufer says.

“They can pick any player in the world. They spend millions just on the scouting system alone. They can choose anyone and they chose our New Zealander Sarpreet Singh, and now he’s getting on the park.”

Singh has so far featured mainly for Bayern Munich’s second string, who play in the third tier of the German professional game, but has impressed greatly and was recently promoted to the first team squad.

Bayern have two more matches to play before the Bundesliga breaks for a month during winter, away against SC Freiburg on Thursday (NZT) before hosting Wolfsburg on the weekend.

Rufer says Singh needs to stay focused to build on his impressive start to life at Bayern.

“It’s small steps and we’re all getting carried, which is cool, but he just needs to keep chipping away. Hopefully, he doesn’t get too carried away and stays nice and humble.”

Article added: Monday 16 December 2019