LUKAS PODOLSKI

'Lukas Podolski' (IPA–German: ) (born as Łukasz Podolski on June 4, 1985 in Gliwice, Silesia, Poland) nicknamed ''(Prinz) Poldi'', is a German footballer of Polish origin. He plays as a striker for Bayern Munich and for the German national football team.

Contents

Early career

Bayern Munich

National team

Honors

Club career stats

References

External links

Early career

Born in the industrial town of Gliwice, in Upper Silesia, Poland, Podolski is one of two top German football players with Polish roots, the other one being Miroslav Klose. His father Waldemar Podolski was also a professional football player playing for a number of Polish clubs, while his mother played handball for Sośnica Gliwice. In 1987, when Lukas Podolski was two years old, his parents settled from People's Republic of Poland to West Germany. Podolski grew up in Bergheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, and later in Pulheim, both near. Cologne.^[1]
It was at 1. FC Köln where Podolski's talents were first noticed. In 2003, at the age of 18, Podolski was still part of the club's youth side. At this time the club found itself in dire straits battling to avoid relegation from the Bundesliga. First team boss Marcel Koller, working on a shoestring budget, invited Podolski to train with the senior players and he made his top flight debut shortly afterwards on November 22, 2003. Even though Cologne failed to avoid a drop to the 2nd German division, Podolski had shown what he could do, scoring 10 goals in his first 19 senior appearances. This was the best tally by an 18 year old in the history of the Bundesliga.
Though his call up to the German EURO 2004 squad brought along interest from several top clubs, Podolski stayed at Köln to help the club gain promotion in the 2004-05 campaign. With 24 goals, Podolski advanced to become the league's best scorer. Somewhat unusually, Podolski remained part of the Germany squad, even though he did not play in the national top tier league.
After 1. FC Köln was promoted, the pressure was on Podolski to keep the club in the Bundesliga practically singlehandedly. Podolski managed to score 12 goals in the 2005-06 season, but eventually, Köln was relegated again. It became clear that Podolski would not stay again to push Köln through the 2006-07 2nd Bundesliga - even more so, as Podolski was becoming an integral part of the national team.

Bayern Munich

Jürgen Klinsmann, the former coach of Germany, held Podolski in high regard as he is an effective scorer both with his head and his feet and still very young and energetic. Because of this, clubs such as Bayern Munich, Hamburg, Werder Bremen and even Real Madrid manifested their interest in Podolski, though he had a contract with FC Köln through 2007. On June 1 2006, Podolski announced that a transfer agreement had been reached with Bayern Munich allowing him to join the Bavarian side for the 2006-07 season. Financial details of the deal were not immediately available, but the transfer fee was speculated to be around €10 million. He made his Bundesliga debut for Bayern on the August 11 2006 with a 2:0 victory against Borussia Dortmund coming on as a substitute on the 88 minute. On September 9 2006 he came on as a second half substitute in a DFB cup game versus FC St Pauli. Only 26 seconds after the second half started he scored the equaliser, evening the match 1:1. On October 14 2006, with his first Bundesliga goal for Bayern, Podolski helped to secure the club's 4-2 win over Hertha Berlin. On 26 October 2006, Podolski suffered a grave injury to his right ankle joint caused by teammate Mark van Bommel during a training session. Consequently, Podolski has missed more than five matchweeks. He has returned from this injury and scored in his third match back in, against Alemannia Aachen.

National team

Even before the 2004/05 season began Podolski had become the first second-division player since 1975 to break into the national team, celebrating his debut for Rudi Völler's Germany on 6 June, 2004 in Kaiserslautern against Hungary with a late substitute appearance.
Podolski played for Germany at Euro 2004, where he was the squad's youngest player. He also attended the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2005 and scored 3 goals there.
Podolski was selected in the Germany squad for the 2006 World Cup, where he partnered Miroslav Klose in attack. He scored his first ever World Cup goal in Germany's 3rd group match against Ecuador, and both goals in the 2-0 win over Sweden in the round of 16. By this, he became the first player since 1962 to score two goals in the first 12 minutes of a World Cup match and only the third man ever to accomplish the feat. During the World Cup, Lukas Podolski and his German squad went to the semi-finals and lost to Italy 2-0 in extra time. And, eventually won the third place match against Portugal. His three goals in the tournament tied him for second in the Golden Boot competition, which was won by his teammate Miroslav Klose with 5 goals. Podolski was tied with Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Fernando Torres, David Villa, Maxi Rodriguez, Hernán Crespo, and FIFA World Cup MVP (winner of the Golden Ball) Zinedine Zidane. Podolski was named the World Cup's Best Young Player for his performance in the tournament.
On September 6, 2006, Podolski netted 4 goals in a Euro 2008 qualifying game against San Marino, which made him only third German after Gerd Müller and Michael Ballack to score 4 goals in an international match. The final score of the match in Serravalle was 0-13. In Germany's 4-1 win against Slovakia in Bratislava on October 11 2006, he scored the first and the last German goal, both on assists by Miroslav Klose. He has continued to score goals at an astonishing rate, with 7 goals thus far in Euro qualifying, second only to David Healy of Northern Ireland with 11 goals.

Honors

On July 6, 2006, Podolski was announced as the first Gillette Best Young Player
'Club Titles'

★ 2. Bundesliga: 2005

★ German Super Cup: 2007
'National Team'

★ Confederations Cup Bronze medallist: 2005

★ World Cup Bronze medallist: 2006

Club career stats

'All-Time Club Performance'

Club	Season	Bundesliga		DFB Cup		European Competition		Total
		App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals	App	Goals
'Bayern Munich'	2007-08	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	2006-07	22	4	3	2	7	1	32	7
Total		22	4	3	2	7	1	32	7
'1. FC Köln'	2005-06	32	12	1	0	-	-	33	12
	2004-05	30	24	2	5	-	-	32	29
	2003-04	19	10	1	0	-	-	20	10
Total		81	46	4	5	-	-	85	51
Career Totals		103	50	7	7	7	1	117	58

References

1. http://www.bpb.de/methodik/3ILKPA,0,0,M_02_11_Lukas_Podolski.html

External links

★ Official website

★ Career stats at fussballdaten.de]

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