Ex-footballer Christoph Metzelder: His most important stations

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In the two-thousand years, Christoph Metzelder, 38, was one of the best-known German defenders. In his pro time as a footballer from 2000 to 2013, he was at Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid and Schalke 04 under contract. He played 178 Bundesliga games.

Metzelders career began furiously: He was already a 19-year-old regulars at BVB, won the club in the 2001/2002 season, the German championship and belonged to the national team, which was surprisingly runner-up in the 2002 finals. At that time a great success for the DFB, who had crashed after the EM embarrassment in 2000 with the preliminary round into a crisis. Metzelder was considered a symbol of departure mood; In 2002 he was the youngest in the squad of former DFB team boss Rudi Völler and was in all seven World Cup matches in the field.

In 2003 he became the 22-year-old captain of BVB. But longer injury breaks threw back the header defender, the EM 2004 he missed after a second surgery on the Achilles tendon.

Andreas Rentz / Bongarts / Getty Images

World Cup Final 2002: Christoph Metzelder vs. Ronaldinho

Many may have remembered the 2006 World Cup, when Metzelder with Per Mertesacker formed a strong defensive duo and thus one of the reasons for the third place in the final round in Germany has been. 2007: the change from BVB to Real Madrid; However, Metzelder did not come out on top of the role of the supplementary player - also due to injuries.

After three years, he moved back into the Bundesliga, Metzelder went to the Dortmund arch-rivals Schalke 04 and was there in 2011 DFB Cup winner. Two years later he finished his professional career, also because of persistent injury problems. His last and 47th international match denied Metzelder at the European Championships 2008, when Germany defeated in the final against Spain.

With the end of the active career Metzelder built up a network of numerous fields of activity. As of 2013, Metzelder was regularly seen as an expert and co-commentator on the pay station Sky, most recently a move to ARD was known. But the planned cooperation will not come about for the time being. ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky said: "Until the allegations are resolved, we will let the cooperation with Christoph Metzelder rest."

Alexander Hassenstein / Bongarts / Getty Images

BVB becomes captain in 2003, this photo shows him in 2007

Metzelder is also the ambassador of numerous charities, most of them pursue social projects for disadvantaged children. Already in 2006, Metzelder had founded his own foundation "Zukunft Jugend". In 2011, the then Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft awarded the ex-professional the NRW Order of Merit for his social commitment. Metzelder had "made extraordinary," said the SPD politician.

Other activities: Until 2018 Metzelder worked as managing director of the sports marketing agency Jung von Matt / sports, then he founded his own agency. In addition, since October 2016, he has been a member of the supervisory board of the third division Prussian Münster, where he began his career. In his hometown of regional league promoters TuS Haltern, he works as a volunteer president.

All these activities should have also led Metzelder to keep talking about important positions in German professional football. He was considered a successor candidate for Reinhard Grindel for the DFB presidency, which had written the "Bild" newspaper in April this year. Metzelder himself did not comment on this topic. At about the same time was speculated about a Metzelders start at his former club Schalke 04 as sports director. In the end he took over neither of the two posts. Currently, he participates in the sports school in Hennef at the DFB training course for prospective football teachers.