Christian Nerlinger (born 21 March 1973) is a German former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

central 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 ...

. His professional career was mainly associated with

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

and

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 footb ...

Club career

Nerlinger was born in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

. He signed for

FC Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which play ...

at the age of 13, completing his formation at the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

n side. He was promoted to the first team in 1992, but made no

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 ...

appearances in his debut season. In the following campaign, Nerlinger's impact, in a midfield which also comprised Jorginho,

Lothar Matthäus Lothar Herbert Matthäus (; born 21 March 1961) is a German association football, football pundit and former professional player and manager. After captaining Germany national football team, West Germany to victory in the 1990 FIFA World Cup whe ...

Mehmet Scholl Mehmet Tobias Scholl (born Mehmet Tobias Yüksel; 16 October 1970) is a German football manager and former player. He played most of his career as an attacking midfielder for Bayern Munich. During his career he won the UEFA Cup in 1996 (scoring ...

and

Christian Ziege Christian Ziege (; born 1 February 1972) is a German football manager and former player. He most recently coached FC Pinzgau. A defender, he started his playing career at FC Bayern Munich, where he won two Bundesliga titles and a UEFA Cup be ...

, was immediate, and he helped the eventual champions by finishing as the second top scorer in the squad with nine goals – a career-best in the German top-flight – only behind Scholl and

Adolfo Valencia Adolfo José Valencia Mosquera (born 6 February 1968) is a Colombian retired footballer who played as a striker. Nicknamed ''El tren'' (train) due to his powerful physique, he played in seven countries – having one-year spells in Germany and ...

's 11; he made his competition debut on 7 August 1993, in a 3–1 home win against

SC Freiburg Sport-Club Freiburg e.V., commonly known as SC Freiburg () or just Freiburg, is a German football club, based in the city of Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg. It plays in the Bundesliga, having been promoted as champions from the 2. Bund ...

. After another four solid seasons, Nerlinger moved to hometown club

, where he began suffering with injuries; this situation would be worsened in the following years, as he could hardly get a game at any of his following two clubs, Scotland's Rangers and 1. FC Kaiserslautern (he reunited with former Bayern teammate

Carsten Jancker Carsten Jancker (born 28 August 1974) is a German football coach and former player who is the manager of Austrian club DSV Leoben. He played as a striker for various teams between 1993 and 2009, including FC Köln, Rapid Wien, FC Bayern Munic ...

in the latter), forcing to his retirement from the game in December 2005.

International career

Nerlinger was

capped In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the ea ...

six times by

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, his debut coming on 5 September 1998, in a 1–1 friendly with

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, in which he scored the equalizer five minutes from time. He did not attend, however, any major international tournament.

Managerial career

After his professional career ended, Nerlinger studied

International Business International business refers to the trade of goods, services, technology, capital and/or knowledge across national borders and at a global or transnational scale. It involves cross-border transactions of goods and services between two or more ...

at the Munich Business School. Shortly later he was appointed team manager at Bayern Munich. In January 2010, he succeeded

Uli Hoeneß Ulrich "Uli" Hoeneß (, ; born 5 January 1952) is the former president of German football club Bayern Munich and a former footballer for West Germany who played as a forward for club and country. Hoeneß represented Germany at one World Cup and ...

as technical manager, upgrading shortly after to

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the club. On 2 July 2012, Nerlinger was replaced by

Matthias Sammer Matthias Sammer (; born 5 September 1967) is a German football official and former player and coach. He played as a defensive midfielder and later in his career as a sweeper. With Borussia Dortmund as a player, Sammer won the Bundesliga and D ...

. Nerlinger became Team Manager on 1 July 2008. He became

Sporting Director A sporting director, or director of sport, is an executive management position in a sports club. The role is well known as a manager role for European football clubs, which are sometime also "sports clubs", offering many types of sports. The sport ...

on 1 July 2009. He held the position until June 2012 when he was replaced by

Career statistics

:''Score and result list Germany's goal tally first, score column indicates score after Nerlinger goal.''

Honours

Bayern Munich *

: 1993–94, 1996–97 *

DFB-Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

: 1997–98 * DFB Liga-Pokal:

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

: 1995–96 Rangers *

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football' ...

: 2002–03 *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,2001–02

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nerlinger, Christian 1973 births Living people German footballers Association football midfielders Germany international footballers Germany under-21 international footballers UEFA Cup winning players Bundesliga players FC Bayern Munich II players FC Bayern Munich footballers Borussia Dortmund players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players Scottish Premier League players Rangers F.C. players FC Bayern Munich board members German expatriate footballers German expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Expatriate footballers in Scotland West German footballers