Ulf Kirsten

Ulf Kirsten
Ulf Kirsten (2019)
Personnel
birthday	4th December 1965
place of birth	Riesa ,  GDR
size	172 cm
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1972-1988	BSG Chemie Riesa
1978-1979	BSG Stahl Riesa
1979-1983	Dynamo Dresden
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1983-1990	Dynamo Dresden	154 0(57)
1990-2003	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	350 (181)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1981-1982	DDR U16	7 00(4)
1982-1984	DDR U18	29 00(9)
1984-1986	DDR U21	10 00(4)
1985-1990	GDR	49 0(14)
1992-2000	Germany	51 0(20)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2003-2005	Bayer 04 Leverkusen (assistant coach)
2005-2011	Bayer 04 Leverkusen II
1 Only league games are given.

Ulf Kirsten (born December 4, 1965 in Riesa ) is a former German football player of the GDR and then of the reunified Germany. He is considered one of the best German goal scorers of the 1980s and 1990s and one of the most important players in the club history of Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen , for whom he was active from 1990 to 2003. Following his professional career, Kirsten was assistant coach of the first team and head coach of the club's second team in the Regionalliga West . In addition to his sporting activities, Kirsten takes care of his own foundation , the "Ulf-Kirsten-Foundation", for the benefit of the youth work of his home club Dynamo Dresden .

At the time of his retirement in mid-2003, Kirsten was the fifth most successful goalscorer in the Bundesliga with 181 goals. With 100 international matches, which he played from 1985 to 1990 and from 1992 to 2000, he is the player with the most appearances who was active for both German states. With the Federal Republic he took part in the 1994 and 1998 World Cups and the 2000 European Championship .

He has been employed at Wacker Nordhausen as a sports advisor since February 2019 .

Career as a player

Before the turn

Ulf Kirsten (right) in a duel with Matthias Morack at the GDR league game Dynamo Dresden - FC Union Berlin in May 1988

Before moving to SG Dynamo Dresden in 1979, Ulf Kirsten started his career with two clubs in his hometown of Riesa - BSG Chemie Riesa (1972–1978) and BSG Stahl Riesa (1978–1979).

At Dynamo Dresden, Kirsten made it into the first team in the 1983/84 league season . In 154 league games, he scored 57 times for Dresden. In the European Cup, Kirsten scored eight goals in 21 games. The Dresdeners' greatest international success in Kirsten's time at Dynamo was their entry into the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup in the 1988/89 season, in which they narrowly (0-1 defeat at VfB Stuttgart and 1-1 in Dresden) on the move into Finale failed. Kirsten won several national titles with Dresden: In 1988/89 and 1989/90 Dynamo was GDR football champion and won the FDGB Cup in 1984, 1985 (each against the BFC Dynamo ) and 1990 (against the Schwerin Police Sports Club) with Kirsten's participation . Overall, he ran 34 times in the GDR cup competition for the SGD and scored 14 hits. In 1990 he was voted footballer of the year in the GDR .

Undisputed star striker in Leverkusen

Ulf Kirsten (approx. 1997)

Kirsten made the leap into the Bundesliga without any effort, already in his first Bundesliga game he scored against FC Bayern Munich . He developed into the best local Bundesliga striker of the 1990s with the Leverkusen team. From the 1990/91 season to the 2002/03 season , Kirsten was able to score 181 times in the opposing goal in 350 first division matches . In addition, there are 32 European Cup goals in 54 games for the club from the Rhineland. Four times - 1996/97 , 1998/99 , 1999/2000 and 2001/02 - Kirsten was second in the Bundesliga each time. A championship title with Leverkusen was denied to him in all 13 seasons, but the club won the DFB Cup in 1993 with a goal from Kirsten in the final against the amateurs of Hertha BSC . The dream of winning the European Cup did not come true in Leverkusen either: In the 2001/02 season, when the club finished second in both the championship and the 2002 DFB Cup , Kirsten and the Rhinelanders lost to Real Madrid in the final at Glasgow's Hampden Park 1: 2 in the UEFA Champions League .

In addition to being elected penultimate GDR footballer of the year in 1990, his personal successes in football included three top scorer cannons in the Bundesliga seasons 1992/93 (20 goals), 1996/97 and 1997/98 (22 goals each).

With his 181 Bundesliga goals, Kirsten is in seventh place in the Bundesliga all-time goalscorer list .

As a national player

Kirsten played a total of 100 international A matches - 49 games for the GDR (14 goals) and 51 for the Federal Republic of Germany (20 goals) - and scored 34 goals for DFV and DFB.

Kirsten, who played ten times (four goals) for the U-21s of the GDR , made his debut for the A-selection as a 19-year-old on May 8, 1985 in the Danish city of Copenhagen in the 1: 4 defeat against Denmark . The GDR could not qualify for a World Cup or European Championship in 1986 , 1988 or 1990 . Kirsten's career in the GDR national soccer team ended on May 13, 1990 with a 3-3 draw against Brazil in the Estádio Mário Filho (Maracanã) in Rio de Janeiro .

He played his first game in the jersey of the DFB team on October 14, 1992 in a 1-1 draw against Mexico at the Rudolf Harbig Stadium in Dresden . Kirsten was part of the German World Cup squad under national coach Berti Vogts in 1994 and 1998 , although he only made four short appearances without a goal at the 1998 tournament in France . While Kirsten was not in the German EM squad in 1992 and 1996 when the Vogts-Elf won the title in England , Erich Ribbeck nominated him for the EM in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2000. June 2000 his 100th and last international match in the 3-0 defeat against Portugal in De Kuip von Rotterdam.

In two international matches Kirsten managed a "three-pack", each to a 3-2 win: on March 28, 1990 for the GDR-Elf under coach Eduard Geyer against the USA and on April 2, 1997 in the World Cup qualifier for the DFB team against Albania .

After the active career

After his career ended in 2003, Kirsten was taken over by Bayer Leverkusen as assistant coach of the first team. In 2005 he moved to the position of head coach of the second team for six years.

From October 2012 Kirsten worked for two sports agencies in the field of marketing and player agency with a focus on Asia. Since he was not in an office job, he quit this job. At the end of 2019, he and two friends opened a comparison portal for betting odds.

Since February 1, 2019, Kirsten has been performing the duties of a sports advisor and sponsorship officer at the fourth division club Wacker Nordhausen .

successes

Dynamo Dresden

• GDR champions (2): 1988/89 , 1989/90
• FDGB Cup winners (2): 1984/85 , 1989/90

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

• Champions League finalist: 2001/02
• German runner-up (4): 1996/97 , 1998/99 , 1999/2000 , 2001/02
• DFB Cup Winner : 1992/93
• DFB Cup finalist: 2001/02
• DFB indoor cup winner : 1994

Awards

• GDR Footballer of the Year : 1990
• Kicker of the year in the striker category : 1997
• Top scorer in the Bundesliga : 1992/93, 1996/97, 1997/98
• Top scorer of the European Cup Winners' Cup : 1993/94
• UEFA Cup top scorer : 1994/95
• Top scorer of the DFB League Cup : 1999

social commitment

Kirsten founded the Ulf Kirsten Foundation with the proceeds from his farewell game on November 16, 2003. Their goal is the sustainable promotion of sport, especially youth football, in Dresden and the Dresden region.

Others

• Kirsten is responsible for the nickname "Zecke" of the soccer professional Andreas Neuendorf . When he came back to training after an examination of an infected tick bite, Kirsten called out to him: "Well, there it is again: The tick!"
• Although Kirsten was the most successful Bundesliga striker of his generation, none of his goals was named “ Goal of the Month ” on ARD .
• His son Benjamin is also a professional footballer.
• Kirsten worked as an unofficial employee of "Knut Krüger" for the Ministry for State Security of the GDR.
• Kirsten is an ice hockey fan of the DEL Club Kölner Haie .
• In 2017 Kirsten was a candidate for Global Gladiators .

Quotes

• "If nobody shouts, 'Kirsten, you asshole' during an away game, then I know for sure that I'm bad."
• Eduard Geyer : "Where others pull their feet, Kirsten goes with his head."

literature

• Short biography for:  Kirsten, Ulf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Ulf Kirsten  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ulf Kirsten in the database of the German Football Association
• Literature by and about Ulf Kirsten in the catalog of the German National Library
• Ulf Kirsten in the database of weltfussball.de
• Ulf Kirsten in the database of fussballdaten.de
• Ulf Kirsten in the database of National-Football-Teams.com (English)
• Matthias Arnhold: Ulf Kirsten - International Appearances. Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
• Marcel Haisma: Ulf Kirsten - Matches in European Cups. Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
• Matthias Arnhold: Ulf Kirsten - Matches and Goals in Bundesliga. Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
• Virtual monument

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Profile on kicker.de, accessed on February 4, 2016
2. ↑ “I don't have to run after anyone”. sz-online.de (chargeable), September 11, 2012, accessed on September 11, 2012 . 
3. ↑ Sven Geisler: “Dynamo? For me now as a fan ” . In: Saxon newspaper . December 1, 2019 (for a fee online [accessed December 1, 2019]).
4. ^ Wacker Nordhausen signs Ulf Kirsten ; wacker90.de, January 28, 2019, accessed on January 29, 2019
5. ↑ Jörg Winterfeldt: Mielke's avenger unpunished . welt.de. March 22, 2000. Retrieved June 26, 2009.
6. ^ Ingolf Pleil: Mielke, power and mastery. In: Hamburger Abendblatt . July 31, 2001, accessed June 1, 2016 . 
7. ↑ DEL: Top Team Sochi: National coach Cortina names the final squad . del.org. December 4, 2012. Archived from the original on December 7, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 4, 2012.