Lars Ricken (born 10 July 1976) is a German retired

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

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 ...

. Since 2008, he has been a youth coordinator at Borussia Dortmund. He represented

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 ...

during his entire professional career, which spanned 15 years, being the youngest player to ever appear for the club in an official match, a record later broken by

Nuri Şahin Nuri Şahin (born 5 September 1988) is a football manager and former professional player who played as a central midfielder. He is the manager of Antalyaspor. He began his career at Borussia Dortmund, spending six years there – including a ye ...

. A German international for five years, Ricken represented the country at the

2002 World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

and the 1999 Confederations Cup.

Football career

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 ...

, Ricken joined local BV Borussia at an early age, and made 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 on 8 March 1994 in a 1–2 home defeat against

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 ...

, aged not yet 18. From the following season onwards, he became a regular. Ricken scored a memorable long-distance goal in

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 the 1996–97 UEFA Champions League edition against

Juventus F.C. )''I Bianconeri'' (The White and Blacks)''Le Zebre'' (The Zebras)''La Signora Omicidi'' (The Killer Lady)''La Gheuba'' (: The Hunchback) , founded = as Sport-Club Juventus , ground = Juventus Stadium , capacity = 41,507 , owner = Agnelli ...

, which stood as the fastest in a final of the competition by a substitute, finding the net after just 16 seconds on the field. He also contributed with 8 goals in 47 matches in the team's back-to-back national titles (1994–96). In the following years, Ricken's success was hampered by a series of injuries. He gained his first

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. Caps typically have a visor, or no brim at all. They are popular in casual and informal se ...

for

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 ...

on 10 September 1997, in a 1998 FIFA World Cup qualifier against

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

, but missed that major international tournament as well as

UEFA Euro 2000 The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe. The finals tournament was ...

. Later, he restored his form, helping Dortmund to claim the league title in

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 ...

by scoring a career-best six goals and being selected by national coach

Rudi Völler Rudolf "Rudi" Völler (; born 13 April 1960), nicknamed "''Tante Käthe''" ("Aunt Käthe"), is a German former professional football player and manager who serves as the sporting director for Bayer Leverkusen. A forward, Völler won the FIFA W ...

for the squad at that year's World Cup; he did not play in the competition, however, as Germany emerged runners-up. Ricken's injury woes returned after the World Cup and, as a consequence, he failed to earn recognition at both European or international level. In early April 2007, he was demoted to the reserve team by manager

Thomas Doll Thomas Jens Uwe Doll (born 9 April 1966) is a German professional football manager and a former football player who is the current Manager of Persija Jakarta. He played as an attacking midfielder for F.C. Hansa Rostock, BFC Dynamo, Hamburger SV, ...

, due to substandard performance. In November 2007, Ricken announced his retirement from football. In an attempt to return to football, he briefly attended a training camp in February 2008 with the

Columbus Crew The Columbus Crew, formerly known as Columbus Crew SC, is an American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio. The Crew competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference and began play in 1996 as one ...

of the

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

, but returned to Germany and Dortmund after a few days. On 11 June 2008, Borussia Dortmund sport director

Michael Zorc Michael Zorc (born 25 August 1962) is a German former footballer who played as a central midfielder. Nicknamed "Susi" in his early days because of his long hair, he spent his entire career with Borussia Dortmund, appearing in 572 competitive matc ...

, also a former club footballer, announced that Ricken was to be hired as youth coordinator with immediate effect, while still appearing for the amateur side in

Regionalliga West The Regionalliga West is a German semi-professional football division administered by the Western German Football Association based in Duisburg. It is one of the five German regional football associations. Being the single flight of the Western ...

. However, on 16 February 2009, he announced his retirement from professional football.

Career statistics

Honours

;Borussia Dortmund *

: 1994–95, 1995–96, 2001–02 * DFL-Supercup:

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

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 ...

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

: 1996–97 * Intercontinental Cup:

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 ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ricken, Lars 1976 births Living people Footballers from Dortmund German footballers Association football midfielders Bundesliga players Borussia Dortmund players Borussia Dortmund II players Germany under-21 international footballers Germany B international footballers Germany international footballers 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2002 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Champions League winning players Borussia Dortmund non-playing staff West German footballers

Football career

Career statistics

Honours

See also

References

External links