Sven Kmetsch (born 13 August 1970) 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 defensive midfielder. He is the assistant manager of Schalke 04 II.

Club career

Kmetsch was born in Bautzen,

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

. Including his youth career, he spent 14 years at Dynamo Dresden, winning the double in his penultimate season before

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, with one of his midfield teammates being Matthias Sammer. After combining East and West German football in the summer of 1991, he would play with the team four consecutive years in 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 ...

, his competition debut coming on 14 September 1991, in a 3–0 home win against SG Wattenscheid 09. After Dynamo's double relegation in 1995, Kmetsch spent three seasons with Hamburger SV, enjoying his best year in 1996–97 – 32 games, four goals – but his team could only rank 13th. He subsequently signed for

FC 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 Rhi ...

, where he would win two consecutive German Cups, being however mostly a backup player during his seven-year spell. After no appearances whatsoever from 2003 to 2005 combined, Kmetsch retired, having various spells as coach of Schalke's second team. After being released in early 2010, he held talks with

TSV Germania Windeck TSV Windeck Germania is a German association football club from the municipality of Windeck in the district of Rhein-Sieg, North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed through the merger in June 2009 of ''FC Germania Dattenfeld'', ''1. Windeck FC'' an ...

and

Bayer Leverkusen II Bayer 04 Leverkusen II was the reserve team of German football club Bayer 04 Leverkusen. Until 2005, the team played as Bayer 04 Leverkusen Amateure. The team has qualified for the DFB-Pokal, the German Cup, on eight occasions, but never advan ...

to join

Heiko Scholz Heiko Scholz (born 7 January 1966) is a German former professional footballer who is the assistant coach of Dynamo Dresden. Club career Heiko Scholz was part of one of only three East German club sides which reached a final in a European cup c ...

's coaching staff.

International career

Kmetsch gained two caps 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 ...

, his debut coming on 10 September 1997, in a

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

qualifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

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 ...

, 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 ...

: at

half-time In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...

, with the score at 0–0 (eventually 4–0), he was replaced by another débutant, Lars Ricken. His second and final appearance (another start, in a 2–0 win) was made five months later, in a friendly with

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...

Career statistics

Club

Honours

DDR-Oberliga The DDR-Oberliga (English: ''East German Premier League'' or ''GDR Premier League'') was the top-level association football league in East Germany. Overview Following World War II, separate sports competitions emerged in the occupied eastern ...

: 1989–90 * FDGB-Pokal: 1989–90 * DFB-Pokal: 2000–01, 2001–02 * DFB-Ligapokal: runner-up 2001, 2002

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kmetsch, Sven 1970 births Living people German footballers East German footballers Men's association football midfielders Bundesliga players Dynamo Dresden II players Dynamo Dresden players Hamburger SV players FC Schalke 04 players Germany men's international footballers German football managers DDR-Oberliga players People from Bautzen Footballers from Saxony People from Bezirk Dresden