Jens Todt (born 5 January 1970) 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
defensive 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 ...
.
Club career
Todt began playing professionally with
TSV Havelse
TSV Havelse is a German association football club based in Garbsen, Lower Saxony, near Hanover.
History
The club was founded in 1912 as ''FC Pelikan-Havelse'' by a group of thirteen young men from the small village of Havelse. They took their ...
. In 1991, he followed manager
Volker Finke
Volker Finke (born 24 March 1948) is a German football manager. He was the coach of SC Freiburg for 16 years.
Coaching career
On 6 December 2008, Japanese club Urawa Red Diamonds announced they signed a contract with Finke as head coach until ...
to
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 ...
, in the
2. Bundesliga
The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...
, and the two would eventually gain legendary status at the
Black Forest
The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...
outfit. In
his second season, he scored a career-best 11 goals in 42 games, being instrumental as the club promoted to 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 ...
for the first time ever.
Freiburg managed to maintain its top flight status in the following three seasons -
finishing third in 1995 - with Todt scoring 14 league goals combined. In the 1996 summer, he signed for
SV Werder Bremen
Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are be ...
, as a replacement for ageing
Dieter Eilts
Dieter Eilts (born 13 December 1964) is a German former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. After retiring as a player, he began a managerial career and also worked for SV Werder Bremen as director of the football academy.
Play ...
(31) and
Mirko Votava (40), managing to appear regularly for the club during his three-year spell, which ended with
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 ...
conquest
Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms.
Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...
, with the player missing in the
penalty shootout
The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pen ...
against
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 ...
(1–1 after 120 minutes) in the final.
Todt subsequently joined
VfB Stuttgart
Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V., commonly known as VfB Stuttgart (), is a German sports club based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The club's football team is currently part of Germany's first division, the Bundesliga. VfB Stu ...
, rarely managing to appear due to injuries and loss of form. He retired in 2003 at the age of 33, with German top division totals of 209 games and 21 goals (plus 101/18 in the second level).
After retiring, Todt worked as a
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
for
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
, joining
Hamburger SV
Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...
as youth team coordinator shortly after. He left HSV in June 2009, and took up a similar role with
VfL Wolfsburg
Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg () or Wolfsburg, is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of W ...
seven months later.
International career
Todt earned three caps for the
Germany national team, his debut coming on 12 October 1994, in a 0–0 friendly draw with
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
.
He was called up to the squad just before the
final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
of
UEFA Euro 1996
The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 ...
as a last-minute addition, due to injuries, but did not play for the eventual champions.
Management career
He was the
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 ...
of
VfL Bochum
Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as simply VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club has spent 35 seas ...
, before being sacked on 8 April 2013.
On 1 January 2017, he was named as the sporting director of Hamburger SV. On 8 March 2018, he was relieved of his duties after Frank Wettstein took over as HSV chairman.
Honours
SC Freiburg
*
2. Bundesliga
The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...
:
1992–93
Werder Bremen
*
UEFA Intertoto Cup
The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...
:
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...
*
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 ...
:
1998–99
VfB Stuttgart
*
UEFA Intertoto Cup
The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...
:
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
Germany
*
UEFA European Championship
The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contes ...
:
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Todt, Jens
1970 births
Living people
German footballers
Association football midfielders
Bundesliga players
2. Bundesliga players
TSV Havelse players
SC Freiburg players
SV Werder Bremen players
VfB Stuttgart players
Germany international footballers
UEFA Euro 1996 players
UEFA European Championship-winning players
People from Hamelin
Footballers from Lower Saxony