Aleksander Knavs

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Aleksander Knavs
Personnel
birthday 5th December 1975
place of birth Maribor ,  SFR Yugoslavia
size 190 cm
position Defender
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1993-1997 Olimpija Ljubljana 70 (5)
1997-2001 FC Tirol Innsbruck 113 (6)
2001-2004 1. FC Kaiserslautern 64 (3)
2004-2005 VfL Bochum 26 (1)
2005-2008 FC Red Bull Salzburg 30 (1)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1993 Slovenia U18 2 (0)
1993-1997 Slovenia U-21 17 (0)
1998-2006 Slovenia 65 (3)
1 Only league games are given.

Aleksander Knavs [ alɛksandɛr knaʊ̯s ] (born December 5, 1975 in Maribor , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a former Slovenian football player .

Knavs began his career in Slovenia and played in German-speaking countries from 1997 to 2008, when he made 233 games (eleven goals) in the top divisions in Austria and Germany. From 1998 to 2006 he also ran 65 times for the Slovenian national team and took part in both the 2000 European Championship in the Netherlands and Belgium and the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea .

Club career

Knavs began his professional career in 1993 at the Slovenian capital club Olimpija Ljubljana , after he had learned to play football at NK Slovan Ljubljana and the Olimpija youth team. After four years and two Slovenian championships (1994, 1995), the central defender moved to Austria for FC Tirol Innsbruck in 1997 . There Knavs became a regular player under his greatest sponsor Kurt Jara . He won the Austrian championship twice (2000, 2001) before moving on to Germany .

In 2001 he signed a contract with 1. FC Kaiserslautern . There he was initially able to convince and became captain. In 2003 he fell out with the then coach Eric Gerets , whereupon a change Knavs to VfL Bochum was agreed, which was announced later. When the coach Kurt Jara, who was valued by Knavs, replaced the Belgian Gerets, the change had already been made.

For the 2004/05 season, after 64 league games for the Palatinate, the Slovenian went to VfL, where he stayed for only one year, to follow his favorite coach Jara in 2005, this time to Salzburg for FC Red Bull Salzburg, which was taken over by Dietrich Mateschitz . In the year under Jara still a regular player, he fell out of favor with the next coach Giovanni Trapattoni and only made a few appearances. His contract ran until January 2008, until then Knavs tried to keep fit while training. As a so-called “squad corpse”, he won the Austrian championship for the third time in 2007. Until 2008 he was still under contract with the Salzburgers before his contract expired. Then he mysteriously disappeared and not even his closest friends knew where he was. According to rumors, he should have joined a sect in Portugal, where the family of his former teammate at 1. FC Kaiserslautern, José Manuel Domingues , is a member. He reported back in November 2014, although he did not provide any information about his absence.

International career

Knavs made his debut for the Slovenian national football team on February 5, 1998 against Iceland , during a country tournament in Cyprus . After this use he became a regular player in the back four of the Slovenes for the qualifying games of the European Championship 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium . After Slovenia prevailed in the play-offs against Ukraine , he was nominated for the Slovenian squad in summer 2000 . Knavs was used in the group matches against Spain and Norway ; the Slovenian team was eliminated after the group stage. In the qualifying games for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea , Knavs was also part of the Slovenian tribe. In this case, too, the Slovenian national team qualified via the qualifying games - this time against Romania - for the World Cup finals and Knavs was nominated for the Slovenian squad in summer 2002 . Here he was used in the group matches against South Africa and Spain and this time Slovenia was eliminated after the group stage. In the following years, Aleksander Knavs was one of the main players in the defense of the Slovenian national team, but the Slovenes were unable to qualify for the 2004 European Championship in Portugal or the 2006 World Cup in Germany . He made his last international match on September 6, 2006 in Sofia , in the 3-0 defeat against Bulgaria . Aleksander Knavs played 65 times for the Slovenian national team and scored three goals.

successes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ der-betze-brennt.de: Knavs change had been certain for months
  2. ↑ WHAT HAPPENED TO… ALEKSANDER KNAVS?
  3. ↑ Pesti držal tudi nekdanji Reprezentant
  4. ↑ Knavs Alexander, Statistics on the international playing career of Aleksander Knavs (in Slovenian)
personal data
SURNAME Knavs, Aleksander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovenian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH 5th December 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Maribor , SFR Yugoslavia