Diego Demme lost a tooth heading home his first professional goal after seven years and 189 appearances

Diego Demme’s first professional goal arrived in the 90th minute of RB Leipzig’s 4-0 win over Freiburg at the Red Bull Arena on April 15, 2017 — and it cost him a tooth. The German midfielder had waited 189 senior appearances across seven years to reach that moment, and when it finally came, a defender’s attempted clearance connected with his face rather than the ball.

Demme had made his senior debut on December 4, 2010, working his way through the German second and third divisions with Arminia Bielefeld and Paderborn before joining Leipzig. He was part of the squad that earned two promotions in three years to reach the Bundesliga in 2016, contributing three assists in the first half of that debut top-flight campaign. Yet a goal of his own remained elusive.

Wearing the captain’s armband for just the second time in his Leipzig career, Demme saw his chance when Timo Werner headed down Dominik Kaiser’s cross in the final minute. He rose to meet it, but as Nicolas Höfler attempted to clear, the defender’s boot caught Demme flush in the face. The ball went in. So did the pain.

“I heard the entire stadium celebrating my goal to make it 4-0, but I was in pain,” Demme recalled. “Marcel Halstenberg came around and said, ‘Oh f**k, you’ve lost your tooth.’ It was funny because I had waited so long to score, only to end up losing my tooth — it was a crazy story.”

Demme kept the tooth as a trophy cabinet exhibit and took the incident in good humour. Referee Manuel Grafe also saw the funny side, declining to book Höfler for the challenge.

His second goal would not arrive for another 934 days, this time in the UEFA Champions League against Zenit St. Petersburg — celebrated, on that occasion, with an uninterrupted fist pump and a team embrace.

Demme proved a more natural scorer once he moved to Napoli in January 2020, netting on his fifth appearance for the club in February of that year and adding three more goals the following season. Whatever it was about Italian football that suited him, it was a far cry from the tooth-losing, long-suffering path to goal he had endured in Germany.