Moritz Bauer (; born 25 January 1992) is an Austrian

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 a

right 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 ...

or a

right 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 ...

. Bauer began his career in the

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

with

Grasshopper Club Zürich Grasshopper Club Zürich, commonly referred to as simply GC, GCZ, or Grasshoppers, is a multisports club based in Zürich, Switzerland. The oldest and best known department of the club is its football team. With 27 titles, Grasshopper holds the ...

. He spent five seasons at

Letzigrund is a stadium in Zürich, Switzerland, and the home of the athletics club LC Zürich, and the football clubs FC Zürich and Grasshopper Club Zürich. LC Zürich is a spin-off of FC Zürich whose members constructed the stadium in 1925. Grasshopper ...

making over 100 appearances for Grasshoppers before joining

Russian Premier League The Russian Premier League (RPL; russian: Российская премьер-лига; РПЛ), also written as Russian Premier Liga, is the top division professional association football league in Russia. It was established at the end of 2001 ...

club

Rubin Kazan FC Rubin Kazan (russian: Футбо́льный клуб Руби́н Каза́нь, ''Futbolny klub Rubin Kazan'' , Tatar: Рубин Казан) is a Russian professional football club based in the city of Kazan. They play in the second-tier ...

June 2016. After two years playing in Russia, Bauer signed for English club

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

in January 2018.

Club career

Early career

Bauer began playing football with the youth teams at SC Veltheim,

and

FC Winterthur FC Winterthur is a Swiss football club based in Winterthur, Canton of Zürich. They play in the Swiss Super League, the first tier of Swiss football, and appeared regularly in the Nationalliga A during the 20th century. Their home is the Stad ...

Grasshopper Club Zürich

A youth exponent from

, Bauer made his

debut on 14 August 2011 against

BSC Young Boys BSC Young Boys (YB by short abbreviation ) are a Swiss sports club based in Bern, Switzerland. Its first team has won 15 Swiss league championships and six Swiss Cups. YB is one of the most successful Swiss football clubs internationally, reac ...

playing the full game which ended in a 3–0 defeat. Bauer became a regular at

, making 102 appearances in five years with the

side.

Rubin Kazan

In June 2016, Bauer signed for

club

. He established himself as first choice right back under

Javi Gracia Javier "Javi" Gracia Carlos (; born 1 May 1970) is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a defensive midfielder. He played 430 matches both major levels of Spanish football combined, in a 15-year professional career. Afte ...

and played 23 times in 2016–17 as Rubin finished in ninth position. He became a popular player with the Rubin Kazan supporters who voted Bauer as their player-of the year for 2017. With Rubin struggling financially in 2017–18 Bauer was free to find another club.

Stoke City

On 9 January 2018, Bauer signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club

. Bauer played 15 times in 2017–18 as Stoke were relegated to the

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

. Despite relegation Bauer admitted that he would be willing to remain with the club. Bauer signed a new five-year contract with the Potters in July 2018. Bauer began the first two games of the 2018–19 away at

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...

and at home to

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

but was then dropped from the team by

Gary Rowett Gary Rowett (born 6 March 1974) is an English professional football manager and former player, who is currently manager of Championship club Millwall. As a player, he was a defender, and played in the Premier League for Everton, Derby County, ...

. It wasn't until Nathan Jones became manager in January 2019, that Bauer started another Championship match, a 2–1 win over Leeds. He failed to retain his place in the side under Jones for the remainder of the campaign and speaking in March 2019 Bauer admitted that he was looking for a new challenge.

Loan to Celtic

On 28 August 2019, Bauer joined

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottish ...

side

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

on loan for the 2019–20 season with the option to purchase. Bauer made his Celtic debut in a 2–0

Old Firm The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply em ...

victory over Rangers at Ibrox on 1 September 2019 where he was on the receiving end of a strong tackle from Jordan Jones who was sent-off. Bauer struggled to establish himself in

Neil Lennon Neil Francis Lennon (born 25 June 1971) is a Northern Irish football coach and former player. During his playing career he represented English clubs Manchester City, Crewe Alexandra and Leicester City. Lennon moved to Celtic in 2000, where he ...

's plans and by February his place in the team was taken by

Jeremie Frimpong Jeremie Agyekum Frimpong (born 10 December 2000) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a right wing-back for Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen and the Netherlands national team. Club career Manchester City Frimpong joined Manchest ...

. He played 13 matches for Celtic as they won a ninth consecutive Scottish Premiership title as the season was ended early in May 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

FC Ufa

On his return to Stoke, Bauer was left out of the first team by Michael O'Neill and was loaned to Russian side

FC Ufa FC Ufa (russian: ФК «Уфа», ba, Өфө, Öfö) is a Russian football club based in Ufa that will play in the second-tier Russian First League in the 2022–23 season. History During the summer of 2010, Rustem Khamitov, the second Preside ...

in February 2021. He moved to Ufa on a permanent basis on 1 July 2021.

Servette

On 25 January 2022, he signed a contract with

Servette Servette is a district of the city of Geneva, Switzerland. The district's name comes from the Latin word for forest, ''silva'', and means "little forest". Its name alludes to Servette's rural past, before Geneva grew beyond its walls and incorpora ...

until 2023.

International career

Bauer was born in Switzerland, and has Austrian citizenship through his Austrian father. He was eligible for the Swiss and Austrian national teams and represented Switzerland at junior international levels. Bauer got his first call up to the senior

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

team for the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national Association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awa ...

qualifiers against

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

in September 2017. He made his debut for Austria in the tie with Georgia on 5 September 2017, a 1–1 draw.

Personal life

Off the pitch Bauer has a number of hobbies. He is a qualified

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

and regularly flies propeller aeroplanes during his breaks from football. He can also play the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and is a

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingualism, monolingual speakers in the World population, world's pop ...

, speaking five languages: French, German, English, Spanish and a basic level of Russian, which he picked up quickly by living with a Russian family and made him a big favourite among Rubin fans.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Grasshopper *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup tournament that has been organised annually since 1925–26 by the Swiss Football Association. Since 1999 the winner earns the chance to qualify for the UEFA Europa League or the UEFA Europa Conference L ...

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

Celtic *

: 2019–20 *

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League Cup in existen ...

: 2019–20

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bauer, Moritz Living people 1992 births Sportspeople from Winterthur Footballers from the canton of Zürich Men's association football midfielders Men's association football fullbacks Austrian men's footballers Switzerland men's youth international footballers Switzerland men's under-21 international footballers Austria men's international footballers Swiss men's footballers Swiss people of Austrian descent Austrian people of Swiss descent Swiss Super League players Grasshopper Club Zürich players FC Rubin Kazan players Stoke City F.C. players FC Ufa players Servette FC players Swiss expatriate men's footballers Austrian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Russia Russian Premier League players Premier League players English Football League players Scottish Professional Football League players