 Möller in 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | (1967-09-02)2 September 1967 (age 57) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Frankfurt,West Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position(s) | Attacking midfielder | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Current team | Eintracht Frankfurt (head of youth) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1973–1981 | BSC Schwarz-Weiß 1919 Frankfurt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1981–1985 | Eintracht Frankfurt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1985–1987 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 35 | (5) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1988–1990 | Borussia Dortmund | 75 | (24) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1990–1992 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 69 | (28) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1992–1994 | Juventus | 56 | (19) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1994–2000 | Borussia Dortmund | 153 | (47) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2000–2003 | Schalke 04 | 86 | (6) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2003–2004 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 11 | (0) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 485 | (129) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1988–1990 | West Germany U-21 | 4 | (2) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1988–1999 | Germany | 85 | (29) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007–2008 | Viktoria Aschaffenburg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2015–2017 | Hungary (assistant) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Andreas Möller (born 2 September 1967) is a German former professionalfootballer who played as anattacking midfielder. He is the head of the youth department atEintracht Frankfurt.
From 1985 to 2004 Möller played in 429Bundesliga games for Eintracht Frankfurt,Borussia Dortmund andFC Schalke 04, scoring 110 goals, and also played inSerie A forJuventus FC. He was a member of theGermany teams that won the1990 FIFA World Cup andUEFA Euro 1996, and is also aChampions League winner,UEFA Cup winner, multiple German champion andDFB Cup winner at club level.
Möller was born the son of a warehouse worker and a bank clerk in the St. Marien Hospital in Nordend, Frankfurt. He grew up in the district ofSossenheim as an only child in modest circumstances.[2][3][4]
Möller's first club was BSC Schwarz-Weiß 1919 Frankfurt, where his father worked as a youth football coach. His coach there was Klaus Gerster, who became his closest friend and later served as an advisor and negotiator throughout his career.[5]
At club level, Möller played forEintracht Frankfurt (1985–87, 1990–92, 2003–04),Borussia Dortmund (1988–90, 1994–2000),Juventus (1992–94), andSchalke 04 (2000–03).[6]
Möller began his career at BSC Schwarz-Weiß 1919 Frankfurt and moved toEintracht Frankfurt in 1981. In 1985 the midfielder won the German A-Youth Championship and in the same year he joined the first-team squad, venturing into professional football. He played his first game inGermany's highest football class on the last day of the1985–86 season in the 0-1 defeat on 26 April 1986 againstHamburger SV.[7] In the following season he came up with 22 missions. He played more and more into the team structure and on Matchday 5 against1. FC Kaiserslautern he scored his first professional goal in league play when he converted a penalty kick to make it 1-2;[8] it was his only goal of the season. In the 1987–88 season, the youngster, who was good at dribbling, developed into a top performer. In his first game of the season on matchday 5 againstBayer 04 Leverkusen, Möller scored twice.[9]
On 17 February 1988, Möller made his debut for Borussia Dortmund, scoring the opening goal againstVfL Bochum in the 42nd minute at home; however, the game ended in a 2-1 defeat for theBlack and Yellows, despite BVB leading 1-0 up until the 88th minute.[10] On the 26th day of the 1987–88 season, against his future employer,FC Schalke 04, Möller received his first and onlyred card,[11] but only had to sit out one game.[12] In the1988–89 DFB Cup season, Möller advanced to the final with his team. There he metSV Werder Bremen. After a clear 4–1 win against the North Germans, his won his first national title during his first spell with the club.[13][6] He also won theDFL-Supercup with Dortmund in the beginning of the 1989–90 season, where he scored the title-deciding goal in the 88th minute of the final match againstBayern Munich.[14]
Möller was a top performer at Borussia but returned to Frankfurt in the summer of 1990.[15] In the first year after his return, he scored 16 goals in the Bundesliga, setting a personal record that he would not surpass until the end of his career. In the 1991–92 season he missed out on winning the title with Frankfurt on the final day. The season was overshadowed by disputes within the team. Möller was a frequent target of keeperUli Stein, on the one hand because of his inconsistency, on the other hand because of the many special contractual conditions.[16]
Möller also wanted to play for Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1992–93 season. However, he had promised theSerie A club Juventus an option right forDM 1.3 million, which the club redeemed in March 1992.[17] The Turin side had resold this option right toAtalanta B.C., whom Möller would have had to join ifJuventus FC had not exercised the option themselves.FIFA had to provide clarification: Möller was bound by the option and had to move to Italy on 1 July 1992, for which he had to buy himself out of his contract with Eintracht Frankfurt for DM 5 million.[18]
After moving to Italian side Juventus, he won theUEFA Cup in1993, beating out his former club, Borussia Dortmund, 6–1 on aggregate, with Möller scoring one of the goals and providing three assists across both legs of the final.[19][20][21]
Despite performing well at Juventus, Möller decided to return to Germany in the summer of 1994 and signed for Borussia Dortmund for the second time. Upon his return to Dortmund, he won several domestic titles with the club, including consecutiveBundesliga titles in1995 and1996.[6] He stayed with the club for a total of six years, scored goals regularly and had the corresponding deployment times. Especially in the championship years 1995 and 1996, Möller showed his class as a playmaker, creator, and scorer. He was considered one of the most prolific midfielders at the time.
His greatest success at club level came in the1996–97Champions League: in thefinal atMunich's Olympic Stadium on 28 May 1997, and saw him once again beating a former team, Turin side Juventus on this occasion, with a 3–1 victory, providing two assists during the match, while his corner also led to the opening goal.[22][23][24] He followed up the victory with theIntercontinental Cup laterthat year, after which he was namedMan of the Match.[25]
During this time, however, there was also controversy and debate surrounding Möller, after he feigned a foul inside the opposing box in a game againstKarlsruher SC on 13 April 1995, when BVB had been trailing 0–1. The then wrongly awardedpenalty led to the equalising goal (1–1), with the final score ending in an eventual 2–1 win for Dortmund. Möller tried to justify hisSchwalbe[26] (a word used for adive in German football jargon, literally meaning "swallow" in Germany) and attacked the KSC coach at the time,Winfried Schäfer.[27] Möller was sentenced to a two-game ban and a fine of DM 10,000 by the DFB sports court. He was the first player to be banned by the DFB because of a dive.[28] National coachBerti Vogts had to temporarily take him out of the national team due to his ban in the league.[29][30]
In his last year with the Black and Yellows, Möller only made 18 league appearances, being substituted on or off seven times. Reasons for this were the strong competition from players likeLars Ricken,Christian Nerlinger,Miroslav Stević andVladimir But as well as minor injuries.
In the summer of 2000, in order to risk a fresh start, Möller decided to sign with arch-rivals Schalke 04 in Dortmund, especially since he received a well-paid offer fromRudi Assauer. Despite criticism, he immediately became a regular there and formed the backbone of Schalke's midfield in his first year withJörg Böhme,Radoslav Látal andJiří Němec. Schalke finished second in the Bundesliga at the end of the2000–01 season, just 1 point behind the ChampionsBayern Munich and won theDFB-Pokal. Following season, Schalke successfully defended theDFB-Pokal title after defeatingBayer Leverkusen at thefinal where Möller scored his team's 3rd goal in a 4–2 victory.[31] After two good years with theGelsenkirchen side, Möller became more of a supplementary player in the2002–03 season. Although he made 22 appearances under coachesFrank Neubarth and laterMarc Wilmots, he was substituted on or off nine times.[32]
For the2003–04 season, Möller went back to Hessen to his home club Eintracht Frankfurt, which had just been promoted to the Bundesliga. Celebrated by the fans before the season as a great returnee and a guarantee of success, disillusionment quickly spread. Möller only played eleven league games and only played 90 minutes twice.[8] He also did not manage to help the club avoid relegation. Möller played his last professional game on 28 February 2004, when he came on as a substitute in the 89th minute of the 3-1 win againstBorussia Mönchengladbach. Three days later he announced his retirement from professional football, bringing his career to an end.[33]
With theGermany national team, Möller was capped 85 times between 1988 and 1999, scoring 29 goals.[34] He took part at five major international tournaments, winning the1990 World Cup andEuro 96.[6][35] He also played for his country atEuro 92, where his team reached thefinal, only to lose 2–0 toDenmark (although Möller did not feature during the match),[36] as well as the1994[37][38][39] and1998 World Cups, in which Germany suffered quarter-final eliminations; in the former edition of the tournament, Germany were eliminated following a surprising 2–1 defeat toBulgaria,[40] while in the latter edition, Germany lost 3–0 toCroatia.[41] Möller did not play in the 1–0 victory overArgentina in the1990 World Cup Final[42][43] and was also suspended for Germany's 2–1 golden goal victory over theCzech Republic in thefinal of Euro 96[44] after he was booked in the semi-final against hostsEngland; in the resultingpenalty shoot-out of the latter match, following a 1–1 draw after extra-time, Möller scored the winning penalty, which he celebrated by mimicking the bravado of the pose struck earlier in the shoot-out whenPaul Gascoigne had converted his penalty.[6][45][46][47]
Described by Stephan Uersfeld ofESPN FC as "one of the greatest midfielders of his generation",[6] Möller was a talented, versatile, and completeadvanced playmaker, who was known for his unique sprinting speed - his nickname was "Turbo Möller" (running the 100 metres in around 11 seconds)- combined with range of passing, creativity, vision, intelligence, and technical ability, as well as his agility, reactions, and his speed of thought and execution, which enabled him to play first–time passes; he also had the ability to carry the ball or run forward at defences while in possession. In addition to hiscreative capabilities and ability to provide assists to teammates, he was also known for his goalscoring, courtesy of his powerful and accurate striking ability with either foot, as well as his heading ability, which allowed him to excel in the air; his offensive qualities also allowed him to be deployed in more advanced roles, as asupporting striker or even as awinger on occasion, in addition to his usualcentral position as anattacking midfielder behind the strikers. He was also afree kick specialist.[50]
After his active career, Möller, together with other former professionals such asDieter Eilts, obtained a football teacher's license at theGerman Sport University Cologne. On 20 December 2006 he joinedViktoria Aschaffenburg in the area of sports organization and sponsoring. In June 2007, Möller started his career as football manager atViktoria Aschaffenburg, playing in theOberliga Hessen. From 2008 to 2011, he was athletic director forKickers Offenbach.
On 20 October 2015, Möller was given a job for theHungary national team. Here he worked as an assistant forBernd Storck. They played together forBorussia Dortmund when Dortmund won the West German Cup in the 1988–89 season.
On 5 October 2019, Möller returned toEintracht Frankfurt and was hired as head of the youth department.[51] In order to have more time for his family, he declared in February 2022 that he would not extend his contract beyond the end of the season and would leave the academy after two and a half years.[52] A short time later it was announced that Möller would be leaving on 31st March and that Alexander Richter would take over as his successor on April 1.[53]
On 28 April 1992 Möller married a school friend, with whom he has three daughters (born in 1993, 1995, and 2000 respectively).[54][55] Since the beginning of 2001 he has been in a relationship with another woman, whom he married on 18 August 2007 after his first marriage ended in divorce in 2003.[56]
Möller is a member of the board of trustees of the youth football foundation,[57] which was founded in 2000 byJürgen Klinsmann, other successful national players and the lecturers of the special football teacher training course.[58]
During the2006 FIFA World Cup he commented on the games of the German national team for the guests of the club shipAIDA.[59]Möller is credited with a classic of football style blossoms. When asked in an interview in 1992 where he would play in the future, he is said to have answered: "Milan orMadrid, the main thing isItaly." In various interviews, Möller stated that he could not remember having made this statement.[60] The sentence was first documented in 1998 in a collage of satirical quotations from Essen's punk rock fanzine Moloko Plus and was made known inKlaus Bittermann's bookVom Feeling her ein gutes Gefühl (1999).[61]
Möller was voted into theBVB Centenary Eleven by the readers of theWAZ media group.[62]
At irregular intervals he worked for television as a co-commentator on football games.[63][64]
Möller features inEA Sports'FIFA video game series; he was on the cover of the German edition ofFIFA 98.[65]
| Club | Season | League | National Cup | League Cup | Continental | Other1 | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Eintracht Frankfurt | 1985–86 | Bundesliga | 1 | 0 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 0 | ||||
| 1986–87 | 22 | 1 | 3 | 2 | – | – | – | 25 | 3 | |||||
| 1987–88 | 12 | 4 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – | 14 | 5 | |||||
| Total | 35 | 5 | 5 | 3 | – | – | – | 40 | 8 | |||||
| Borussia Dortmund | 1987–88 | Bundesliga | 14 | 3 | 2 | 0 | – | – | – | 16 | 3 | |||
| 1988–89 | 29 | 11 | 5 | 2 | – | – | – | 34 | 13 | |||||
| 1989–90 | 32 | 10 | 2 | 0 | – | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 39 | 11 | |||
| Total | 75 | 24 | 9 | 2 | – | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 89 | 27 | |||
| Eintracht Frankfurt | 1990–91 | Bundesliga | 32 | 16 | 7 | 2 | – | 2 | 1 | – | 41 | 19 | ||
| 1991–92 | 37 | 12 | 2 | 0 | – | 4 | 2 | – | 43 | 14 | ||||
| Total | 69 | 28 | 9 | 2 | – | 6 | 3 | – | 84 | 33 | ||||
| Juventus | 1992–93 | Serie A | 26 | 10 | 4 | 4 | – | 10 | 4 | – | 40 | 18 | ||
| 1993–94 | 30 | 9 | 1 | 0 | – | 7 | 3 | – | 38 | 12 | ||||
| Total | 56 | 19 | 5 | 4 | – | 17 | 7 | – | 78 | 30 | ||||
| Borussia Dortmund | 1994–95 | Bundesliga | 30 | 14 | 2 | 0 | – | 9 | 3 | – | 41 | 17 | ||
| 1995–96 | 23 | 8 | 4 | 1 | – | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 34 | 11 | |||
| 1996–97 | 26 | 5 | 1 | 0 | – | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 37 | 6 | |||
| 1997–98 | 26 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 16 | ||
| 1998–99 | 30 | 7 | 2 | 0 | – | – | – | 32 | 7 | |||||
| 1999–00 | 18 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 1 | – | 28 | 4 | |||
| Total | 153 | 47 | 13 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 39 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 212 | 61 | ||
| Schalke 04 | 2000–01 | Bundesliga | 32 | 1 | 6 | 1 | – | – | – | 38 | 2 | |||
| 2001–02 | 32 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 1 | – | 45 | 8 | |||
| 2002–03 | 22 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | – | 29 | 1 | |||
| Total | 86 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 1 | – | 112 | 11 | |||
| Eintracht Frankfurt | 2003–04 | Bundesliga | 11 | 0 | 1 | 0 | – | – | – | 12 | 0 | |||
| Career total | 485 | 129 | 56 | 19 | 8 | 0 | 74 | 21 | 4 | 1 | 627 | 170 | ||
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 1988 | 1 | 0 |
| 1989 | 6 | 2 | |
| 1990 | 7 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 5 | 1 | |
| 1992 | 7 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 10 | 7 | |
| 1994 | 12 | 2 | |
| 1995 | 9 | 5 | |
| 1996 | 12 | 6 | |
| 1997 | 4 | 0 | |
| 1998 | 10 | 4 | |
| 1999 | 2 | 0 | |
| Total | 85 | 29 | |
Eintracht Frankfurt
Borussia Dortmund
Juventus
Schalke 04
Germany
Individual
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