“Pukki Party” in full flow as striker becomes unlikely star
Pukki is the first player in Premier League history to score that many in his first two games in the competition. Not for 21 years had a player scored a hat trick on his first home Premier League appearance.
Pukki is a journeyman striker no more.
"He finds the space. He knows when the time is right to go forward and when to stay," said Jari-Pekka Gummerus, who was a junior coach when a 12-year-old Pukki joined KTP, a club from the Finnish town of Kotka on the coast of the Baltic Sea. "The moves he made, the amount of goals he scored, it was exceptional," Gummerus added in a phone interview. "You thought, 'OK, this guy has something else.'"
Indeed, Pukki's movement and work rate has been as impressive as his goals.
Against Newcastle, he sprinted back 70 meters after Norwich lost possession high upfield and nicked the ball off Joelinton as the Brazilian forward broke on the counterattack.
"He really embodies the spirit of the team," Norwich manager Daniel Farke said. "No one is thinking about themselves." It is a trait Gummerus remembers, too.
"Modest," is how he described Pukki as a kid. "He didn't want to make a big (deal) of himself. Even now, he is just doing his job."
has taken Pukki more than a decade to really live up to the promise he showed as a teenager at KTP, for whom he made his debut at 16 as the youngest player ever start a match in Finland's top league.
Norwich picked him up as a free agent in the 2018 offseason, and playing in England has brought out the best out of him. Pukki was top scorer in the second-tier Championship last season with 29 goals — he also managed 10 assists in all competitions — as Norwich finished top to return to the Premier League after a three-year absence.
Even with Finland, he has grown in stature this past year, scoring decisive goals in five competitive internationals in the last 12 months — three Nations League games and two European Championship qualifiers. "There is massive interest in him, especially in Kotka but in the whole of Finland," Gummerus said. "Everyone is anticipating how many goals he is going to score. People are very excited.
"We keep in contact with him. Of course, it means a lot to him where he is originally from. He doesn't forget his roots."
With a Viking beard to offset his thin top, the 29-year-old Pukki has a rather rugged appearance that hardly marks him out as a superstar.
https://www.sanluisobispo.com/sports/article234249997.html