Jonny Otten (born 31 January 1961) is a German retired 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 mostly as a

left back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

Club career

Born in

Hagen im Bremischen Hagen im Bremischen is a municipality in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 20 km south of Bremerhaven, and 35 km northwest of Bremen. Hagen was the seat of the former ''Samtgemeinde'' (" ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, Otten played 13 years as a professional at

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 ...

, making his

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 ...

debut at the age of 18 and never losing his starting position again (except through injury) until the end of 1990. He totalled 308 top division matches, scoring his only goal on 26 November 1983 in an 8–1 home routing of Kickers Offenbach; in the

1987–88 UEFA Cup The 1987–88 UEFA Cup was won by Bayer Leverkusen on penalty kicks over Español. It was the third season of English clubs being barred from this and indeed all European competitions as the sequel of the Heysel disaster of May 1985. The English ...

, he took the pitch in the 66th minute of a match at

Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...

(after a 4–1 loss in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

), and helped turn things around with a tough approach, for a final 6–2 home win. After leaving Bremen in 1992, having played twice in the club's victorious run in the

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

, Otten had a brief spell in the

second division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

with VfB Oldenburg, then spent a couple of seasons in the amateur leagues before retiring from the game.

International career

Otten earned six caps for

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, during 13 months and five days. His debut came on 23 February 1983, as he played the second half of a 1–0

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

loss in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

after coming on as a substitute for Lothar Matthäus.

Honours

Werder Bremen *

: 1987–88 * DFB-Pokal: 1990–91; runner-up 1988–89, 1989–90 *

: 1991–92 * DFL-Supercup:

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Otten, Johnny 1961 births Living people German footballers Association football defenders Germany international footballers Germany B international footballers Germany under-21 international footballers Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players SV Werder Bremen players VfB Oldenburg players Rotenburger SV players Footballers from Lower Saxony West German footballers