Olaf Thon (born 1 May 1966) is a German former professional football player and coach. Mainly a

central 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 ...

, Thon's 19-year professional career was solely associated to

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04 (), Schalke 04 (), or abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional German football and multi-sports club originally from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine ...

and Bayern Munich, having amassed more than 500 official games and 100 goals for both combined. Later in his career, Thon played as a sweeper. Nicknamed ''The Professor'',Thon, a German great
FIFA.com he also collected more than 50

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for the Germany national team.

Club career

upright=0.6, left, Thon in 1987 upright=0.6, left, Thon with Bayern Munich in 1990 Thon made his professional debuts at the age of only 17, with local powerhouse FC Schalke 04. His impact was immediate, as he scored 14 goals in 38 games to help the Gelsenkirchen side return 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 ...

in 1984, as runners-up. Also during that season, he scored a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

against Bayern Munich in the

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 considered ...

, in a 6–6 home thriller in the semi-final stage; the

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

ns eventually won the replay and the tournament. On 24 August 1984, Thon made his first appearance in the German top level, a 3–1 loss at Borussia Mönchengladbach. During

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and the following three seasons, he only scored once in single digits, rarely missing a match for the team. In the summer of 1988, Thon signed with national giants FC Bayern Munich, as a replacement for

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is ...

-bound

Lothar Matthäus Lothar Herbert Matthäus (; born 21 March 1961) is a German football pundit and former professional player and manager. After captaining West Germany to victory in the 1990 FIFA World Cup where he lifted the World Cup trophy, he was awarded the ...

. He scored eight in 32 games in his first season, helping the side to the league conquest, which also befell the following year, with the player posting an equal scoring record. Thon returned to his first club Schalke in 1994, at the age of 28, after winning another league title, although he spent most of the season injured and Matthäus had already returned to Bayern. During his second spell, he played almost exclusively as a sweeper and, in his third year, played in a total of 46 official games, helping his club to the season's

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

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, where he scored his attempt in the

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win against Inter (1–1 on aggregate); Schalke could only finish 12th in the domestic league, however. In his later years, Thon suffered extensively with injuries, only appearing in nine matches in his last two seasons combined. He retired in June 2002 at the age of 36, with Bundesliga totals of 443 games and 82 goals. Subsequently, he worked as marketing manager for the club, until August 2009.

International career

Thon made his debut 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 ...

(then

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 ...

) on 16 December 1984, playing the second half of a 3–2 win in

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

for the 1986 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. Subsequently, he was selected for the squads at three

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

s, helping the nation win the tournament in the 1990 edition in Italy: after only six minutes against Colombia in the group stage (1–1), he played the entire semifinal against

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, also scoring in his

attempt (1–1 after 120 minutes). Thon also represented Germany at the

UEFA Euro 1988 The 1988 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in West Germany from 10 to 25 June 1988. It was the eighth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. The tournament crowned the Nethe ...

played on home soil, scoring through a rare header against

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(2–0 group stage win), and playing all the matches and minutes for the eventual semifinalists. Due to either injuries or run-ins with national team manager Berti Vogts, the player missed the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States w ...

and the Euro 1992 and 1996 tournaments, ending his 14-year international career with 52

(three goals). His last international match came against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in Germany's last group stage game during the 1998 FIFA World Cup.

Managerial career

On 1 February 2010, Thon was appointed head coach of VfB Hüls, beginning to work on 3 April.

Career statistics

Club

Managerial statistics

Honours

Schalke 04 *

: 1996–97 *

: 2000–01, 2001–02 Bayern Munich *

: 1988–89, 1989–90, 1993–94 * DFB-Supercup:

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

Germany *

; runner-up:

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thon, Olaf 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from Gelsenkirchen German footballers Association football defenders Association football midfielders Association football utility players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players FC Schalke 04 players FC Bayern Munich footballers Germany international footballers Germany under-21 international footballers Germany youth international footballers 1986 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 1988 players 1990 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players FIFA World Cup-winning players UEFA Cup winning players VfB Hüls managers Footballers from North Rhine-Westphalia German football managers STV Horst-Emscher players