Michael Klein (soccer player, 1965)

Michael Klein (born February 22, 1965 ) is a former German soccer player . The defender played 49 Bundesliga games for Eintracht Frankfurt and 26 second division games for FSV Frankfurt .

Athletic career

Klein played for SG 01 Hoechst until 1983 , then he played for Viktoria Sindlingen in the third-class Oberliga Hessen until 1986 . After his move to league rivals FSV Frankfurt , he moved under coaches such as Dragoslav Stepanović and Wolfgang Solz in the top group of the league and attracted higher class attention.

In the summer of 1989, Klein joined the Bundesliga founding member Eintracht Frankfurt , which in the 19080s was mostly in the middle of the table. Under coach Jörg Berger , the club returned to the top group of the German championship, Klein was one of the frequently used supplementary players. He made his debut in the German elite series on 9 September in a 2-1 home defeat against FC Bayern Munich when he came on for Thomas Lasser in the 84th minute of the game. By the winter break he had made twelve appearances, and was in the starting line-up six times. After a handful of missions, primarily as a substitute in the first half of the 1990/91 season , he was part of the regular formation until the end of the season after a coach change under Stepanović and contributed to reaching the UEFA Cup as fourth. Even at the beginning of the following season, he was still a regular player after a 2-1 defeat against Hamburger SV to a changeover Stepanovićs and only moved back into the team after an injury to André Köhler , but was again unable to establish himself permanently. In the following season he only played seven games after playing for the last time under Stepanović in the 4-1 defeat at Karlsruher SC at the beginning of November , his successor Horst Heese granted him on the last day of the 2-1 away win at Hamburger SV a kind of farewell game.

In 1993 Klein returned to FSV Frankfurt, with whom he was promoted to the 2nd Bundesliga as a league champion under coach Klaus Gerster . However, the team had no chance there and was consistently bottom of the table from the fourth playground until the end of the season. Klein made a total of 26 appearances this season, in the 2-2 draw at the start of the season against FSV Zwickau , he scored his first and only goal in professional football. After relegation, he moved to SV Darmstadt 98 in the Regionalliga Süd . He only stayed there for one season before moving on to the former Bundesliga club and now fourth division Kickers Offenbach . The club strengthened its team in addition to Klein with ex-professionals such as Stefan Simon and Frank Kastner . Under coach Wilfried Kohl's runner-up behind SV Wehen , he moved with the club at the end of the season in the promotion games to the Regionalliga, in which the club prevailed against FC Memmingen after a game was abandoned . In the game played in Mannheim, however, he was not used.

Again Klein returned to FSV Frankfurt, which meanwhile also only appeared in the Oberliga Hessen. With the club he won the league championship in 1998 and then played in the regional league. From 2000 he let his career come to an end as a player-coach at SV Zellhausen.

Web links

• Michael Klein on eintracht-archiv.de
• Michael Klein at fupa.net