Lars Bender

This article deals with the German national soccer player Lars Bender. For the German football player born in 1988, see Lars Bender (football player, 1988) .

Lars Bender
Lars Bender, 2018
Personnel
birthday	April 27, 1989
place of birth	Rosenheim ,  Germany
size	185 cm
position	Defensive midfield full defense (right)
Juniors
Years	station
1993-1999	TSV Brannenburg
1999-2002	SpVgg Unterhaching
2002-2006	TSV 1860 Munich
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2006-2009	TSV 1860 Munich	58 0(4)
2006-2007	TSV 1860 Munich II	9 0(1)
2009–	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	242 (21)
2009-2011	Bayer 04 Leverkusen II	3 0(0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2005-2006	Germany U17	9 0(1)
2007-2008	Germany U19	9 0(2)
2009	Germany U20	6 0(1)
2010	Germany U21	1 0(0)
2016	Germany Olympic selection	6 0(0)
2011-2014	Germany	19 0(4)
1 Only league games are given. Status: end of season 2019/20

Lars Bender (born April 27, 1989 in Rosenheim ) is a German football player . The defensive midfielder has been under contract with Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen since the 2009/10 season and has been their team captain since 2015 . He is the identical twin brother of Sven , with whom he has been back in the same club since 2017. Since his time in Bavaria and Leverkusen, he has often been used in defensive midfield, and has also played regularly as a right full-back for several years.

For the German national team , he played 19 games from 2011 to 2014. He took part in the Euro 2012 and reached the semi-finals with the team. At the 2016 Olympic Games he reached the soccer final with the German selection and won the silver medal.

Origin and education

Lars Bender, son of a customs officer from Rosenheim, is the identical and older twin brother of Sven Bender , who is also a professional footballer . Both grew up in Brannenburg near Rosenheim, graduated from secondary school and dropped out of business apprenticeships.

The Benders counted Piotr Nowak and Abédi Pelé , who both played for TSV 1860 Munich , to their idols. You are the 14th pair of brothers who played in German national soccer teams (including the GDR selection ).

Club career

Lars Bender played in the youth team of TSV Brannenburg from 1993 to 1999 , and from 1999 to 2002 he was a member of the youth team at SpVgg Unterhaching . In the summer of 2002 he moved to Grünwalder Strasse in Munich. At TSV 1860 he played in the youth teams from the U14. In 2006, Bender became German B youth champions with the U17 of TSV 1860 .

Although he actually moved to the U19 age group for the 2006/07 season, he was part of the squad of the second and first team. In August 2006 he played for the second team in the Regionalliga Süd for the first time , in October he sat as a substitute for the professionals on the bench and made his professional debut on November 27 at the age of 17 at the home game against TuS Koblenz in the 2nd Bundesliga . He made 13 appearances in his first year as a professional, nine of them on the grid. In the second year he was a regular in defensive midfield. On the first day of the new season he scored his first professional goal. He started the 2008/09 season again as a regular player. In the second division game at FSV Frankfurt on October 3, 2008, Bender took over the captain's armband in the 70th minute of play and was the youngest captain in the history of TSV 1860 at the age of 19. After that, a number of injuries ensured that he ended the season with only Completed 15 missions.

Lars Bender in action (2012)

In April 2009, Bender announced that he would be joining Bayer 04 Leverkusen for the 2010/11 season . After he had played two league games for 1860 at the beginning of the 2009/10 season, the change was made in mid-August 2009. The decisive factor for the early move was that he was able to live close to his brother Sven, who moved to Borussia Dortmund before the season, when he was in Leverkusen . The two twin brothers had lived in a shared apartment in Munich . Lars Bender played 58 games in the 2nd Bundesliga in 1860, in which he scored four goals.

In Leverkusen he was substituted on for the first time in a first division game on the 6th match day and was also used as a substitute in most of his 20 season games. In the following season, his position in defensive midfield remained competitive and he was often second choice, but he made 27 appearances and three goals and was runner-up with Leverkusen. He also played in all games in the Europa League that reached the round of 16. In the 2011/12 season he finally prevailed; Both in the league and in the Champions League he was a regular player and played most of the games over the full season, interrupted only by a forced break after a muscle torn in spring 2012. However, he missed the renewed Champions League qualification with the club.

For the 2015/16 season , coach Roger Schmidt appointed him the new team captain to succeed Simon Rolfes , who had ended his career after the end of the preseason.

His contract in Leverkusen runs until 2021.

National team career

Bender after his goal against Denmark in the Euro 2012

Lars Bender (left) and his brother Sven against Neymar during the final of the 2016 Olympic football tournament

Bender took part in the 2006 European Championship in Luxembourg with the German U17 national team, where they finished fourth. In 2008 he was in the German squad of the U19 European Championship in the Czech Republic , where the team became European champions. He was used in four games and scored two goals, including the 1-0 opening goal in the final against Italy. At the end of the tournament, Lars and Sven Bender, two golden players of the tournament, were awarded, which is still unique today. The following year he took part in the U20 World Cup and played all five games until they were eliminated in the quarter-finals.

On September 4, 2011, Bender was nominated for the A international match against Poland two days later. He was substituted on for his club colleague Simon Rolfes after 77 minutes at the game in Gdansk . Then he also came to other short appearances in the national jersey.

Lars Bender and his brother Sven were invited by national coach Joachim Löw in May 2012 to prepare for the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine . Since their regular position in the defensive midfield was well filled, it was generally not expected that the Bender brothers would join the EM squad . Since Lars Bender was used more versatile in the club, Löw took him to the tournament anyway. He was already used in the first two group matches when he was substituted on in the final minutes of the German team's tight tours. After Jérôme Boateng was suspended for the third game, he took his place as a right defender on the starting line-up. In the 80th minute of the game he completed a counterattack for the German team with his first international goal for a 2-1 winner against Denmark. On May 29, 2013 in the friendly against Ecuador , Bender was used from the start and scored two goals as a defensive midfielder.

On May 8, 2014 he was appointed by Löw in the provisional squad for the World Cup in Brazil . During a training session of the preliminary DFB selection at the training camp in St. Martin, he suffered a muscle and tendon injury in his upper right thigh, whereupon participation in the tournament had to be excluded.

On July 15, 2016, he was appointed to the DFB squad for the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro . Together with his brother Sven and Nils Petersen, he was one of the three permitted players in the squad who were born before 1993. Bender was called up in all six games from the start and was able to participate in the 22 tournament goals of the German team with a template.

Achievements and Awards

• German B-Junior Champion 2006 (with TSV 1860 Munich)
• In 2006, Lars Bender received the golden Fritz Walter medal for the U17 age group
• 2008 U19 European Champion
• 2008 U19 European Championship Golden Player Award (together with his brother Sven )
• 2011 German runner-up with Bayer Leverkusen
• 2016 Summer Olympics : Silver medal in soccer tournament

social commitment

Bender has been an ambassador for the Burgholz children's hospice in Wuppertal since February 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Lars Bender  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of Lars Bender
• Lars Bender in the database of weltfussball.de
• Lars Bender in the database of fussballdaten.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lars reveals: The secret of the Bender twins at bild.de, August 24, 2011 (accessed June 10, 2012)
2. ↑ Bender & Bender in the EM team: separation of the twins ; spiegel.de, May 23, 2012, accessed on January 25, 2016
3. ↑ Schiller, Kai: A bender rarely comes alone . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , March 10, 2008, No. 59, p. 27.
4. ↑ ^{a b} "We grew up blue" at merkur-online.de, April 27, 2007 (accessed on June 10, 2012).
5. ↑ dpa-AFX ProFeed: Löw is full throttle - elimination race is running . May 23, 2012 3:00 PM GMT (accessed via LexisNexis Business).
6. ↑ Lars Bender will definitely remain a lion until 2010 ( Memento from May 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet Archive , originally on tsv1860.de on April 27, 2009
7. ^ "The Duel of the Brothers" (WDR.de) ( Memento from January 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Kicker : All right with Bayer: Bender goes !? , accessed August 18, 2009
9. ↑ Bender new Bayer captain ; sport1.de, published and accessed on August 4, 2015
10. ↑ Until 2021 - Captain Lars Bender extends early ; bayer04.de, January 19, 2018, accessed January 30, 2018
11. ^ Proof of performance from Lars Bender at the U19 European Championship 2008 ; transfermarkt.de, accessed on July 18, 2016
12. ↑ DFB : Lars Bender nominated for the game against Poland , accessed on September 4, 2011
13. ↑ Kicker : Cacau saves the DFB selection from bankruptcy , accessed on September 6, 2011
14. ↑ DFB squad for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil fussballnationalmannschaft.net, accessed on May 8, 2014
15. ^ Lars Bender World Cup exclusion , accessed on May 23, 2014
16. ↑ The Olympic squad has been determined. In: www.dfb.de. German Football Association V. (DFB), July 15, 2016, accessed on July 15, 2016 . 
17. ^ Proof of performance from Lars Bender during the 2016 Summer Olympics ; transfermarkt.de, accessed on August 22, 2016
18. ↑ Wuppertaler Rundschau: Professional footballer visits the valley - Lars Bender is ambassador for the children's hospice , February 11, 2019, accessed on February 14, 2019