Steffen Hofmann

This article deals with the soccer player Steffen Hofmann. For other people see Stefan Hoffmann and Stephan Hoffmann .

Steffen Hofmann
in the jersey of SK Rapid Wien (2015)
Personnel
birthday	September 9, 1980
place of birth	Wurzburg ,  Germany
size	173 cm
position	midfield
Juniors
Years	station
1985-1993	1. FC Kirchheim
1993-1996	Würzburger FV
1996-1999	FC Bayern Munich
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1999-2002	FC Bayern Munich amateurs	84 (26)
2001-2002	FC Bayern Munich	1 0(0)
2002-2006	SK Rapid Vienna	109 (26)
2006	TSV 1860 Munich	16 0(2)
2006-2018	SK Rapid Vienna	325 (72)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
	Germany U-16	6 0(0)
1996-1997	Germany U-17	12 0(1)
1997-1998	Germany U-18	3 0(1)
2003-2004	Team 2006	3 0(0)
1 Only league games are given.

Steffen Hofmann (born September 9, 1980 in Würzburg ) is a former German soccer player . He last played from 2002 to 2018 with a six-month break (second half of the 2005/06 season at TSV 1860 Munich ) for the Austrian Bundesliga club SK Rapid Wien . With 554 games for Rapid Vienna, he is the record player and with 128 goals the second best goalscorer in the history of the club.

Career

societies

Via the youth clubs 1. FC Kirchheim and Würzburger FV , for which Steffen Hofmann played from the age of five to sixteen, he joined the youth department of FC Bayern Munich in 1996 , where he was active until 1999.

From 1999 to 2002 he was a member of Bayern's amateur squad , for which he played 84 times in the Regionalliga Süd and scored 26 goals. He made his debut on August 19, 2000 (4th matchday) in a goalless draw against 1. FC Schweinfurt 05 , where he came on for Philipp Bönig in the 78th minute . He scored his first goal on October 28, 2000 (14th matchday) for a 1-0 lead in the 6-1 defeat at SSV Jahn Regensburg .

On October 27, 2001 (11th matchday) Hofmann made his debut in the Bundesliga when he came on for Claudio Pizarro in the 90th minute in a 2-0 away win over 1. FC Köln . He is currently one of 30 "one-time players" at FC Bayern Munich.

In 2002 he moved to the Austrian Bundesliga club SK Rapid Vienna . There the playmaker formed one of the best midfield duos in the league together with Andreas Ivanschitz . He was elected Player of the Year in Austria in 2004 and led Rapid as team captain in 2005 to the 31st championship title in the club's history and to move into the group stage of the Champions League . In the winter break of the 2005/06 season Steffen Hofmann moved to the second division TSV 1860 Munich , where he could not build on his successes in Austria.

In July 2006 he returned to Rapid Vienna. However, he injured himself in the first competitive game against SV Ried . 105 days later he made his comeback against Pasching . Since then he has been a game-defining figure at Rapid and in 2008 took over the captain's loop again. At SK Rapid, Hofmann is the crowd's favorite and is known as the " god of football ". For many fans, he embodies the typical rapid player, who is characterized above all by high commitment and perseverance. Hofmann is also known for his dangerous free kicks and precise assists . Hofmann was the best preparer in Europe in the 2007/08 season with 28 assists. In season 2008/09 he had to the title with the midfielder Xavi of FC Barcelona share, as it brought both players to 22 assists.

In February 2010 he extended his contract to a further three years. The contract extension was announced immediately before the top game against FC Red Bull Salzburg , after Hofmann had been associated with numerous international clubs in the months before.

In the 2009/10 season he was Austria's top scorer with 20 goals for the first time in his career , something that no other SK Rapid midfielder has achieved before or after him. With the Bundesliga game on April 9, 2016 (30th matchday), in a 2-2 draw in the away game against Wolfsberger AC , Hofmann was only the second SK Rapid Wien player to play his 500th competitive game.

In the summer of 2017 he passed his captain's ribbon on to Stefan Schwab because of his decreasing deployment time and was made honorary captain.

Hofmann's contract ended on June 30, 2018. After his contract expired, he ended his career. His last competitive game on May 20, 2018 (35th matchday) in the 4-1 win against SCR Altach, he crowned - after substituting for Philipp Schobesberger in the 66th minute - with the goal of the final score in the 73rd minute. It was his first goal of the season and the last of his career.

National team

The Austrian Football Association ( ÖFB ) made efforts to have Steffen Hofmann, a native German, play for Austria's national team. Nothing would have stood in the way of a swift naturalization of the professional who was married to an Austrian, but the FIFA statutes ultimately made it impossible for Hofmann to switch to the ÖFB, as he was already used in DFB selection games (U-16 to U-18) as a youth . A change would have been possible up to a certain date, but failed because the Austrians missed the deadline. Hofmann had to cancel the invitation to the German national team's 2005 trip to Asia due to illness; there were no further appointments. Hofmann played in the German national jersey for the first time on April 30, 2003: With the 2006 team he reached a 0-0 draw in Turkey against the A 2 team - substituting for Albert Streit in the 46th minute . Then he played twice more against the selection of Russia. On September 4, 2003 in Aalen with a 3-2 win and on April 27, 2004 in Moscow with a 1-1 draw.

successes

• Austrian champion 2005 , 2008
• Champions League participant 2005
• Europa League group winners 2015
• Fourth in the 1997 U-17 World Cup
• German B-Junior Champion 1997 (with FC Bayern Munich)

Awards

• Austrian top scorer 2010
• Austria's footballer of the year
  • 2004 and 2009 after APA footballer's election (elected by coaches)
  • 2005 and 2010 after VdF footballer election (elected by the Association of Footballers )
  • 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 after the Krone footballer election (elected by the readers of the Kronen Zeitung )
  • Team of the group stage of the Europa League 2016

social commitment

Since May 2017, Steffen Hofmann has been an ambassador for the Vienna integration project Kicken ohne Grenzen , which enables young people without performance-oriented admission criteria to take part in regular free training courses and subsequently provides educational opportunities that facilitate entry into the school system or professional life. He was also involved several times in Caritas projects .

Web links

Commons : Steffen Hofmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Steffen Hofmann in the database of weltfussball.de
• Steffen Hofmann in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Steffen Hofmann in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Statistics on rapidarchiv.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fascination Fan Curve: A dignified farewell to record player at Rapid Vienna on May 21, 2018
2. ↑ Hofmann's historiography on skrapid.at
3. ↑ http://www.skrapid.at/de/startseite/news/news/aktuelles/2017/07/von-kapitaen-zu-kapitaen/
4. ↑ The era continues: Contract extension with Steffen Hofmann skrapid.at, accessed on May 30, 2017, accessed on May 30, 201
5. ↑ Rapid record player Steffen Hofmann listens to kleinezeitung.at on May 17, 2018, accessed on May 20, 2018
6. ↑ Hofmann's last home game on weltfussball.de
7. ↑ Hofmann's last home game on weltfussball.de
8. ↑ Article on sport.t-online.de
9. ↑ The captain at Kicking Without Borders (accessed May 17, 2018)