The forward has scored 12 goals in as many Bundesliga appearances despite struggling for game time with the Spanish champions <\/p>\n
Paco Alcacer says he feels important again since joining\u00a0Borussia Dortmund after being overlooked for\u00a0two\u00a0years at Barcelona.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old striker joined the Catalans\u00a0from Valencia in 2016 but made only 23 league appearances in two years at Camp Nou, struggling to displace the likes of Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n
After signing for Dortmund on\u00a0a season-long loan deal in August, Alcacer impressed so much that the German club announced in October they would make\u00a0it a permanent switch\u00a0for \u20ac23 million (\u00a320m\/$26.5m).<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n Speaking to Sport Bild<\/em>, Alcacer said: “Since joining BVB, I’m finally feeling important again. I’ve played very little in Barcelona for the past two years. That’s why I understand that I haven’t always played from the start so far.<\/p>\n “Every footballer wants to play. I’m not happy when I’m sitting on the bench. But if we’re having so much success as a team, it’s OK. Because getting a title is always great.<\/p>\n “I only have one thing in my head: I want to score goals and help the team. This has worked perfectly in the past few months.<\/p>\n “Actually, I’ve been a little surprised with the ease that I’ve been scoring the goals with. But I have to say that my teammates have a big part in it. They often make it easy for me to score.<\/p>\n Alcacer is the joint top scorer in the Bundesliga, tied with Frankfurt’s Luka Jovic on 12 goals despite playing half as many minutes as the 21-year-old.<\/p>\n In fact, Alcacer has made just 12 appearances in the league and only five starts after being hampered by injury problems, although a substitute role has suited the forward with 10 of his strikes coming\u00a0from the bench.<\/p>\n “If you suddenly have to play every three days after not playing regularly for two years, that’s a big change for the body. I was aware of that,” Alcacer continued.<\/p>\n “But I work with the coaching team to get my body up to 100 per cent efficiency. I want to avoid injuries in the second half of the season.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Dortmund return to action with a trip to RB Leipzig\u00a0on January 19 following the winter break in Germany.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The forward has scored 12 goals in as many Bundesliga appearances despite struggling for game time with the Spanish champions Paco Alcacer says he feels important again since joining\u00a0Borussia Dortmund after being overlooked for\u00a0two\u00a0years at Barcelona. The 25-year-old striker joined the Catalans\u00a0from Valencia in 2016 but made only 23 league appearances in two years at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n