Leon Goretzka

Leon Goretzka
with the national team (2019)
Personnel
Surname	Leon Christoph Goretzka
birthday	February 6, 1995
place of birth	Bochum ,  Germany
size	189 cm
position	midfield
Juniors
Years	station
1999-2001	Werner SV 06 Bochum
2001–2012	VfL Bochum
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2012-2013	VfL Bochum	32 0(4)
2013-2018	FC Schalke 04	116 (14)
2015	FC Schalke 04 II	1 0(0)
2018–	FC Bayern Munich	54 (14)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2010-2011	Germany U16	10 0(2)
2011–2012	Germany U17	17 0(5)
2012-2013	Germany U19	3 0(0)
2013-2016	Germany U21	10 0(1)
2016	Germany Olympic selection	1 0(0)
2014–	Germany	25 (11)
1 Only league games are given. Status: end of season 2019/20 2 As of November 19, 2019

Leon Christoph Goretzka (born February 6, 1995 in Bochum ) is a German soccer player . The midfielder played at VfL Bochum for 12 years and after five years at FC Schalke 04 has been under contract with FC Bayern Munich since 2018 , with whom he won the triple of the German championship , DFB Cup and UEFA Champions League in 2020 . He is a German national player and won the silver medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil with the Olympic selection.

Career

societies

VfL Bochum

Goretzka started playing football at the age of four at Werner SV 06 Bochum, a Bochum district club . In 2001 he moved to the VfL Bochum F youth team . For the 2012/13 season he moved up to the first team, for which he made his debut on August 4, 2012 (1st matchday) in a 2-1 win in the second division game against Dynamo Dresden . In this game he scored his first goal as a professional with the 1-1 goal. In his debut season he played 32 point games and scored four goals.

FC Schalke 04

During the 2013 summer break, Goretzka moved to FC Schalke 04 after Bayern Munich showed interest in him in 2012 . He received a contract running until June 30, 2018 and the shirt with the number 8. He played his first competitive game for Schalke on August 5, 2013 in the first main round of the DFB Cup competition against FC Nöttingen , where he Substituted shortly before the end of the game, scored the goal to make it 2-0. In his 25 Bundesliga appearances in the 2014/15 season, he scored four goals and prepared one. He finished the season with his team in third place , which meant direct qualification for the Champions League 2014/15 . After the second half of the season he was considered for the first time by national coach Joachim Loew for the senior national team.

As part of a test match at DJK TuS Hordel , Goretzka suffered a torn muscle bundle in his left thigh in July 2014 and was therefore absent during the preparation for the 2014/15 season and after setbacks in rehab he was finally unable to complete the first half of the season. In total, he played ten point games, but never over the full playing time. There was also a game for the second team and a game against Real Madrid in the Champions League .

Goretzka completed the preparation for the 2015/16 season in full. In the league he earned a regular place in defensive midfield alongside newcomer Johannes Geis ; partly he was also used in the right midfield. Goretzka played 15 of 17 first round games and prepared three goals. In the Europa League he qualified with FC Schalke 04 for the knockout phase . In the DFB Cup competition, he was eliminated with the Schalke in the second main round at home with 0: 2 against Borussia Mönchengladbach .

During the 2017/18 season , Goretzka had to pause twice due to a bony stress reaction in his lower leg and thus missed a large part of the first half of his club.

FC Bayern Munich

For the 2018/19 season he will move to FC Bayern Munich free of charge, with whom he signed a contract that will run until June 30, 2022. He made his Bundesliga debut for Bayern on August 24, 2018 (1st matchday) in a 3-1 home win against TSG 1899 Hoffenheim with a substitution for Javi Martínez in the 67th minute. He scored his first competitive goal for FC Bayern Munich on September 1, 2018 (2nd match day) in a 3-0 win in the Bundesliga away game against VfB Stuttgart with the goal to make it 1-0 in the 37th minute. On February 15, 2019, Leon Goretzka scored the fastest own goal in Bundesliga history. After just 13 seconds, the ball landed in Bayern's goal for Augsburg. At the end of his first season in Munich, he won the double , consisting of the German championship and the DFB Cup . Goretzka won the triple with FC Bayern in the 2019/20 season .

National team

Goretzka made his U16 national team debut on November 15, 2010 in a friendly against Northern Ireland . In the 3-2 win he made it 2-1. On August 24, 2011 against Turkey (4-0) he made his debut in the U17 national team, which he led in May 2012 as captain at the U17 European Championship in Slovenia in the final against the Netherlands . Goretzka's opening goal to make it 1-0 was equalized in stoppage time, and the subsequent penalty shoot-out was won by the Netherlands.

He played his first game for the German U21s in August 2013 against the French team .

In 2014 Goretzka was nominated for the provisional squad of the German senior national team for the 2014 World Cup . On May 13, 2014, he made his debut for the national team in the friendly against the Polish team in Hamburg . After the game, in which he sustained a muscle injury, he was canceled for the preparatory training camp.

In September 2015 he was appointed captain of the U21 national team by national coach Horst Hrubesch . Goretzka went to the 2016 Olympic soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro as captain, but was unable to continue the tournament due to an injury in the early stages of the first game. After the final match, which the DFB team against hosts Brazil lost on penalties, he honored his Schalke team-mate Max Meyer at the awards ceremony by a German jersey with the flocking Goretzka upheld. For winning the silver medal, he received the silver laurel leaf on November 1, 2016 .

National coach Joachim Löw appointed Goretzka to the squad for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. He scored his first international goal on June 19, 2017 in the first group match for the Confederations Cup in a 3-2 win over the national team of Australia . After the German team won the tournament, he and Lars Stindl were awarded the “Silver Shoe” as the second best goalscorer and the “Bronze Ball” as the third best player in the tournament.

In 2018 Joachim Löw nominated him for the 2018 World Cup ; he came only 63 minutes in the last group game against South Korea (0: 2) for use and was eliminated with the team in the preliminary round.

successes

National team

• FIFA Confederations Cup Winner 2017
• Silver medal winner Olympic football tournament 2016
• U17 Vice European Champion 2012

FC Bayern Munich

• UEFA Champions League : 2020
• German champion : 2019 , 2020
• DFB Cup Winner: 2019 , 2020
• DFL Supercup winner: 2018

Awards

• Silver Shoe of the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017
• 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup bronze ball
• Prize winner Fritz Walter Medal 2012 (in gold (U17))
• Goal of the month : October 2017
• Prize winner " Football Felix " 2017
• District footballer of the year 2017
• Bundesliga player of the month January 2019
• Classification as world class in the ranking of German football : Summer 2020

Style of play

Peter Neururer , his coach in Bochum's time, said of Goretzka that he had “never seen an 18-year-old who even remotely had his potential” and called him a “talent of the century”. Dariusz Wosz , Goretzka's A youth coach, said he was an "exceptional player like I haven't had before".

Goretzka combines dynamism, feeling for the ball, stamina and goal danger. He is attested to have a great understanding of the game. He can occupy the defensive positions in midfield as well as the flanks and the position of the playmaker. His skills are best shown to advantage in a central position, for example on the 8. His sporting role model is Toni Kroos , as Goretzka sees parallels in the style of play.

Others

Goretzka graduated from the Alice Salomon Vocational College in Bochum in 2014 with a high school diploma . He has three sisters.

In 2020 he founded the We Kick Corona initiative together with Joshua Kimmich due to the Corona crisis . The footballers have paid one million euros for social and charitable institutions; other professional footballers also took part in the initiative.

Web links

Commons : Leon Goretzka  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Leon Goretzka in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Leon Goretzka in the database of weltfussball.de
• Leon Goretzka in the database of kicker.de
• Leon Goretzka in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Leon Goretzka on schalke04.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Squad list for the 2016 Olympic Games, p. 7 (available as PDF ; 3.81 MB).
2. ↑ DFB.de: U21 data sheet from Leon Goretzka
3. ↑ S04 reaches an agreement with VfL Bochum about the change of Leon Goretzka
4. ↑ Bayern are keen on super talent Leon Goretzka from VFL Bochum , goal.com , January 18, 2012
5. ↑ Sportschau : FC Nöttingen - Schalke 04 0: 2 - Keller team is showering its way into the next round ( memento from October 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on August 5, 2013.
6. ↑ Leon Goretzka suffers from torn muscle bundles Website FC Schalke 04, accessed on July 12, 2014.
7. ↑ http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/709800/artikel_ruhe-empfohlen_goretzka-fehlt-und-ent geht- bruch.html , accessed on February 20, 2018
8. ↑ https://www.tz.de/sport/fussball/schalkes-leon-goretzka-schon-wieder-verletzt-zr-9426724.html , accessed on February 20, 2018
9. ↑ https://www.transfermarkt.de/leon-goretzka/verletzungen/player/153084 , accessed on February 20, 2018
10. ↑ https://www.transfermarkt.de/leon-goretzka/leistungsdaten/player/153084 , accessed on February 20, 2018
11. ↑ FC Bayern sign national player Leon Goretzka , fcbayern.com, January 19, 2018, accessed on January 19, 2018.
12. ↑ Focus : 0-0 against France - U21 juniors remain goalless with a good Goretzka debut , accessed on August 14, 2013.
13. ↑ Löw nominates 30 players for the extended World Cup squad ( Memento from May 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) dfb.de, May 8, 2014.
14. ↑ A-Team with 27 players to the training camp in South Tyrol ( Memento from August 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) dfb.de, May 14, 2014.
15. ↑ DFB .de: Leon Goretzka: "It is a special feeling to be a captain" , accessed on September 5, 2015.
16. ↑ Press release from the Office of the Federal President of November 1, 2016: Awarding of the Silver Laurel Leaf. Retrieved March 31, 2017 . 
17. ↑ This is the German squad for the Confed Cup 2017. TZ.de, June 19, 2017, accessed on June 19, 2017 . 
18. ↑ FIFA: Awards largely in German hands , July 2, 2017
19. ^ Fritz Walter Medal 2012: The winners: These are the best talents in Germany
20. ↑ derwesten.de: (Jan. 12, 2018) , accessed on January 14, 2018
21. ^ Leon Goretzka | Player of the month January | FCB. Retrieved February 23, 2019 . 
22. ↑ Die Welt : Schalke sign Bochum's super talent Goretzka , accessed on June 1, 2013.
23. ^ FAZ : A boy from Bochum for the big football world , accessed on February 1, 2013.
24. ↑ Leon Goretzka - wing or midfield? Halbfeldflanke.de
25. ^ RevierSport: Goretzka passed the school leaving examination , accessed on July 15, 2014.
26. ↑ "I like to take responsibility" . Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 18, 2017
27. ↑ Goretzka and Kimmich start the “We kick Corona” initiative. In: Welt Online . March 20, 2020, accessed March 20, 2020 .