Manfred Starke (born 21 February 1991) is a Namibian 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 plays as an

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an Glossary of association football terms#O, 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 #Cent ...

for club VfB Oldenburg. He also holds German citizenship.

Club career

Starke was born in

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 20 ...

, Namibia to a Namibian-born German father and a Dutch mother. He began his professional career at FC Hansa Rostock. He is the older brother of

Sandra Starke Sandra Starke (born 31 July 1993) is a Namibian-born German footballer who plays as a forward for German club RB Leipzig. as well as the Germany national team. She was born in Windhoek, Namibia to a Namibian-born German father and a Dutch mothe ...

. Starke moved to FSV Zwickau in 2020. In July 2022, he signed with VfB Oldenburg, newly promoted to the

3. Liga The 3. Liga is a professional association football league and the third division in Germany. In the German football league system, it is positioned between the 2. Bundesliga and the fourth-tier Regionalliga. The modern 3. Liga was formed for t ...

International career

In October 2012, Starke made his debut for

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

in a friendly against

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

. He played at

2019 Africa Cup of Nations The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (abbreviated as AFCON 2019 or CAN 2019), known as the Total 2019 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, was the 32nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's football champion ...

, the country's first continental tournament in 11 years.

References

External links

* * 1991 births Living people Namibian people of German descent Namibian people of Dutch descent German people of Namibian descent German people of Dutch descent Sportspeople from Windhoek White Namibian people Namibian footballers German footballers Association football midfielders Namibia international footballers 2019 Africa Cup of Nations players 2. Bundesliga players 3. Liga players Regionalliga players FC Hansa Rostock players FC Carl Zeiss Jena players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players FSV Zwickau players VfB Oldenburg players Namibian expatriate footballers {{Namibia-footy-bio-stub