Pukki reveals why he wears number 22 and his love of ‘unique’ team spirit at City

The Finland star featured on the latest edition of the Sky Sports EFL Podcast, facing the ‘Ten to Tackle’ feature as 10 light-hearted questions were fired his way.

Pukki, who was named Championship Player of the Season in 2019 after scoring 29 goals during City’s title-winning campaign, was asked why he wears the number 22 on his shirt.

“There were not too many numbers to pick from when I came here but the 22nd is my wife’s birthday,” he explained. “So that’s why I picked that number out of the numbers I was given.

“I had the chance to change it after the first season but I decided to keep it, I’m happy with that.”

The 30-year-old former Celtic and Schalke striker has an impressive total of 45 goals from 94 games in total for the Canaries, since signing on a free transfer after a prolific four years with Danish club Brondby in 2018.

Asked what makes Norwich special to him, the Finn replied: “I think the players, the group we have is a really nice group to be in, to be part of this team, the atmosphere we have is unique. I enjoy playing in this team.”

Pukki was asked who his most intelligent team-mate was and quickly decided to go for Christoph Zimmermann as a “clever guy”, before getting the more awkward question of who is not the brightest.

With a laugh, he chose Onel Hernandez, but quickly qualified that by saying: “He is actually getting cleverer, he is a father now - he’s a nice guy!”

Pukki, who has scored four goals in 10 games so far this season, was asked about who his football heroes were when he was younger.

“A couple,” he said. “In my age group in Finland people would probably say (Jari) Litmanen and the other one was the Brazillian Ronaldo, he was the guy that I was looking up to when I was growing up.”

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