Björn Mehnert (born 24 August 1976) is a German football manager and a former player who played as a defender or

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Career

Mehnert began his career with his hometown club,

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

, and progressed through the reserve team, being promoted to the first-team squad of the then-European champions in 1997. He made his debut in the second leg of the

UEFA Super Cup The UEFA Super Cup is an annual super cup football match organised by UEFA and contested by the winners of the two main European club competitions; the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The competition's official name was original ...

against

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, replacing

Steffen Freund Steffen Freund (born 19 January 1970) is a German former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder in both the German and English top flights. He was capped 21 times for his country and played a significant part in Germany's ...

as a 20th-minute substitute, and made three appearances in the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

, and one in the Champions League, against

Sparta Prague ) but refer to Spartans as "''Rudí''" ( en, The Dark Reds/The Maroons).'' Letenští'' , ground = Generali Česká pojišťovna Arena , capacity = 19,416 , clubname = Sparta Prague , image = Sparta Praha logo.png , image_size = 160px , fu ...

. Mehnert left Dortmund at the end of the 1997–98 season, joining ambitious Regionalliga side

LR Ahlen Rot Weiss Ahlen is a German football club based in Ahlen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Until 2006 the club was known as ''LR Ahlen'' for its major sponsor, but underwent a name change when the sponsor withdrew its support after the team was relegated ...

, but returned six months later for another couple of seasons in Dortmund's reserve team. In 2002, he signed for

Wuppertaler SV Wuppertaler SV is a German association football club located in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. The city was founded in 1929 out of the union of a number of smaller towns including Elberfeld, Barmen, Vohwinkel, Cronenberg and Ronsdorf – e ...

, where he spent four and a half seasons, leaving in January 2007 to join

Preußen Münster Preußen or Preussen is the German word for Prussia. It also refers to: Ships * ''Preußen'' (ship), windjammer built in 1902 * SMS ''Preußen'' (1873), armored frigate * SMS ''Preußen'' (1903), pre-dreadnought Battleship * , vorpostenboot ...

. Six months later he returned to Wuppertal to play for the reserve team, before joining amateur side

Westfalia Rhynern Westfalia Rhynern is a German association football club from the district of Rhynern in the city of Hamm, Westphalia. History The club was established in 1935 as ''Turn- und Sportverein Rhynern'', but disappeared after two years when, like man ...

. In 2010, he was appointed as player-manager of SV Hohenlimburg, before returning to manage Rhynern a year later, having retired. He also works for

VfL Osnabrück VfL Osnabrück is a German multi-sport club in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony. It currently fields teams in basketball, gymnastics, swimming, table tennis, and tennis but is by far best known for its football section. History Foundation to WW2 The c ...

, in the capacity of sports

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

and video analysis.

References

External links

* 1976 births Living people German men's footballers Men's association football defenders Men's association football midfielders Borussia Dortmund II players Borussia Dortmund players Rot Weiss Ahlen players Wuppertaler SV players SC Preußen Münster players Bundesliga players German football managers Rot Weiss Ahlen managers Footballers from Dortmund {{Germany-footy-defender-1970s-stub