Sven Bender (; born 27 April 1989) is a German former 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 as a

central defender 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 ...

and

defensive 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 ...

. He was raised in Brannenburg and started his football career playing for TSV Brannenburg. Sven is the twin brother of

Lars Bender Lars Bender (; born 27 April 1989) is a German former professional footballer who played as a right back and defensive midfielder. He is the twin brother of Sven Bender. Club career Early career Lars Bender played from 1993 to 1999 in the yout ...

Club career

Early career

Bender played from 1993 to 1999 in the youth of the TSV Brannenburg. From 1999 to 2002, he was part of

SpVgg Unterhaching Spielvereinigung Unterhaching () is a German sports club in Unterhaching, a semi-rural municipality on the southern outskirts of the Bavarian capital Munich. The club is widely known for playing in the first-division association football league B ...

youth teams. In summer 2002, Bender moved to the 1860 München youth team.

1860 Munich

He started his football career on the U-14 team and played for all of 1860 München's youth teams in three years. In November 2007, Bender extended his contract with the club until 2011. In 2009, Munich had to sell both Lars and Sven Bender, due to club's financial problem. Sven moved to

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 ...

and Lars to

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, th ...

. Sven played 65 games and scored 1 goal for 1860 Munich. In 2009, he joined Borussia Dortmund, where he signed a contract that tied him to the club until 2013.

Borussia Dortmund

Bender made his Bundesliga debut on 19 September 2009 in a game against

Hannover 96 Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896, commonly referred to as Hannover 96 (), Hannover, HSV or simply 96, is a German professional football club based in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. They played in the Bundesliga for a total of 30 years betwe ...

. His biggest rival for the spot in the defensive midfield suffered several injuries and Bender established himself in the starting eleven very quickly. He scored his first Bundesliga goal on 12 February 2011 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern and extended his contract until 2017. The years 2011 and 2012 were very successful for Bender, as he was an important player in Borussia Dortmund's midfield and helped the team win the national championship in both years as well as 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 considere ...

in 2012. On 6 January 2013, Bender extended his contract with Dortmund, keeping him at the club until 2017. During the 2012–13 season, he was struggling with several injuries which made Dortmund sign

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 ...

in January 2013. After treatment of his injury, Bender got another opponent for his position. He was on his way to becoming the number one player on his position and shared a place with team's captain

Sebastian Kehl Sebastian Walter Kehl (; born 13 February 1980) is a German former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder. He is currently the Sporting Director of Borussia Dortmund. He amassed Bundesliga totals of 314 games and 24 goals o ...

and helped the team to reach

2013 UEFA Champions League Final The 2013 UEFA Champions League Final was the final match of the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League, the 58th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 21st season since it was renamed from the European Champion ...

, although they were defeated by their domestic rivals

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

. On 27 July 2013, Bender won the

2013 DFL-Supercup The 2013 DFL-Supercup was the fourth DFL-Supercup, an annual football match contested by the winners of the previous season's Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal competitions. It featured Bayern Munich, winners of the 2012–13 Bundesliga and the 2012–1 ...

with Dortmund 4–2 against Bayern Munich. In February 2014, he suffered injury after a loss against

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

, which eventually ruled him out for the rest season. On 21 February 2016, Bender signed a contract extension to keep him at the club until 2021.

Bayer Leverkusen

On 13 July 2017, Bender ended his eight-year tenure at Borussia Dortmund with 158 Bundesliga matches, signing a four-year contract with Bayer Leverkusen until 2021. Both Benders announced retirement from football after the end of the 20/21 season.

International career

Bender with the German national team in 2016 against Brazil At the under-19 level, Bender was a part of the team that won the 2008 European Under-19 Championship. He and his twin brother Lars were named jointly as players of the tournament. Bender made his debut for the senior team in a friendly match against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in March 2011. He appeared in several more friendly games and nominated for the

Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 ...

but did not make the squad's final. In February 2014, Bender suffered an

Osteitis pubis Osteitis pubis is a noninfectious inflammation of the pubis symphysis (also known as the pubic symphysis, symphysis pubis, or symphysis pubica), causing varying degrees of lower abdominal and pelvic pain. Osteitis pubis was first described in pa ...

injury that ruled him out for the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

. His last internationals therefore were two friendlies in late 2013. In mid-July on 2016, despite not being called up for the senior team since 2013, he made the spot for

Germany Olympic football team The Germany Olympic football team represents Germany in international football competitions in Olympic Games. It has been active since 1908, and first competed in 1912. Olympic football was originally an amateur sport, and as the pre-World War ...

for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

as one of three over 23 years old players along with his brother and

Nils Petersen Nils Petersen (; born 6 December 1988) is a German professional association football, footballer who plays as a forward (association football), forward for Bundesliga club SC Freiburg and the Germany national football team, Germany national team. ...

, where Germany won the silver medal.

Coaching career

In June 2022, the German Football Association appointed him as the new assistant coach of the Germany U-16 national team.

Career statistics

Club

, , 0, , 32, , 1 , - ,

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 ...

, 20, , 1, , 1, , 0, , 11, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 32, , 1 , - , 2013–14 , 19, , 1, , 2, , 0, , 5, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 27, , 1 , - , 2014–15 , 20, , 0, , 5, , 0, , 6, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 32, , 0 , - , 2015–16 , 19, , 0, , 5, , 0, , 11, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 35, , 0 , - , 2016–17 , 6, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 8, , 0 , - !colspan="2", Total !158!!4!!18!!0!!45!!0!!3!!0!!224!!4 , - , rowspan="5",

, 2017–18 , rowspan="4", Bundesliga , 29, , 2, , 5, , 0, , colspan="2", —, , 0, , 0, , 34, , 2 , - , 2018–19 , 27, , 0, , 2, , 0, , 3, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 32, , 0 , - , 2019–20 , 33, , 2, , 5, , 1, , 9, , 1, , 0, , 0, , 47, , 4 , - ,

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

, 18, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 1, , 0, , 0, , 0, , 20, , 0 , - !colspan="2", Total !107!!4!!13!!1!!13!!1!!0!!0!!133!!6 , - !colspan="3", Career total !350!!12!!35!!1!!58!!1!!3!!0!!446!!13

Personal life

On 20 June 2015, Bender married Simone Dettendorfer, his long time girlfriend since 2008.

Honours

;Borussia Dortmund *

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 ...

2010–11 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 ...

, 2011–12 *

: 2011–12, 2016–17 * DFL-Supercup:

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

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 ...

runner-up:

;Germany *

UEFA European Under-19 Championship The UEFA European Under-19 Championship, or simply UEFA Under-19 Championship or the UEFA Euro U-19, is an annual football competition contested by the European men's under-19 national teams of the member associations of UEFA. Spain and England ...

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

: Silver Medal,

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

Individual *

Fritz Walter Medal The Fritz Walter Medal is a series of annual awards given by the German Football Association to youth footballers in Germany. First awarded in 2005, it is named in honour of Fritz Walter, captain of West Germany's 1954 FIFA World Cup-winning team ...

U17 Bronze Medal 2006 * UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship Golden Player:

References

External links

Official Website of Sven Bender
* * * * *

Bundesliga profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bender, Sven 1989 births Living people German twins People from Rosenheim Sportspeople from Upper Bavaria Footballers from Bavaria Association football midfielders German footballers Germany international footballers Germany youth international footballers Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players 3. Liga players Regionalliga players TSV 1860 Munich II players TSV 1860 Munich players Borussia Dortmund players Borussia Dortmund II players Bayer 04 Leverkusen players Twin sportspeople Footballers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers of Germany Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for Germany Olympic medalists in football