Klaus Allofs (born 5 December 1956) is a German former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

player, manager, and executive. A striker, Allofs was a prolific goalscorer for club and country. He amassed

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 footb ...

totals of 424 games and 177 goals over the course of 15 seasons (finishing as the league's top scorer on two occasions), playing mainly for

Fortuna Düsseldorf Düsseldorfer Turn- und Sportverein Fortuna 1895 e.V., commonly known as Fortuna Düsseldorf (), is a German football club in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, which competes in the 2. Bundesliga. Founded in 1895, Fortuna entered the league ...

and

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ball ...

. His younger brother,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

, was also a professional footballer and also a striker, sometimes on the same team. Allofs gained nearly 60 caps for

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 ...

, representing the nation in

one 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 ...

World Cup and two

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

, including the triumphant

Euro 1980 The 1980 UEFA European Football Championship finals tournament was held in Italy. This was the sixth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and endorsed by UEFA. It was the first European Championship to feature eight teams i ...

tournament. In 1999, after briefly working as a coach at

, he became general manager at former club Werder Bremen, where he, in tandem with head coach Thomas Schaaf, helped the club to great success, winning the double of

and

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 2004, reaching the

2009 UEFA Cup Final The 2009 UEFA Cup Final was the final match of the 2008–09 UEFA Cup, the 38th season of the UEFA Cup, UEFA's second-tier club football tournament. It was also the last final to be held under the UEFA Cup name, as the competition was rebranded as ...

and qualifying for the

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 competi ...

six times.

Playing career

Club

Born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...

, Allofs began playing professionally for home team

, in 1975. He started his career as an

attacking 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 ...

, and scored nearly 100 overall goals for the club, helping it to consecutive

German cup 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 consider ...

wins, and often playing upfront with sibling

. In 1978–79, he finished as the

's top scorer, and also scored three in nine in Fortuna's

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tourn ...

runner-up run, including one in

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

, an

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only ...

loss against

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

. In 1981 Allofs joined

, where he continued scoring at an excellent rate. In 1985–86 he only tallied seven times in the league, one goal being from 70 metres out against Bayer Leverkusen (an intended pass to a breakaway forward that bounced over the advancing Leverkusen goalkeeper), but he added nine in as many matches in the

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 ...

, as the team

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography * Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland *Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

on aggregate to

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

. In the following season, he re-partnered with Thomas, then left the country during three years, playing in France with

Olympique de Marseille Olympique de Marseille (, ; oc, Olimpic de Marselha, ), also known simply as Marseille or by the abbreviation OM (, ), is a French professional men's football club based in Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Founded in 1899, the club p ...

and

FC Girondins de Bordeaux Football Club des Girondins de Bordeaux (), commonly referred to as Girondins de Bordeaux ( oc, Girondins de Bordèu) or simply Bordeaux, is a French professional Association football, football club based in the city of Bordeaux in Gironde (de ...

. Allofs retired in June 1993, aged nearly 37, after three seasons with

SV Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen (), Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen, Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, they are best known for the ...

, still managing to score regularly. In the 1991–92 Cup Winners' Cup he scored in

against AS Monaco FC, in an eventual 2–0 win. In his final year, he played 16 games without scoring – the only time other than his first season that it happened in his career – as Werder won the league title. In total, he appeared in 424

matches, totalling 177 goals. When he retired he was in joint seventh place on the list of the Bundesliga's all-time leading scorers, tied with Dieter Müller.

International

Allofs played 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 betwee ...

a total of 56 times, scoring 17 goals. His first match was on 11 October 1978 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, against

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, a 4–3 friendly win. Allofs went on to play for the national side at the victorious UEFA Euro 1980 (where he scored three times to top the goalscoring charts, all in a 3–2 group stage win against the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

), Euro 1984 and

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-team format. Colombia ha ...

. Pushed to the sidelines by emerging stars Rudi Völler and

Jürgen Klinsmann Jürgen Klinsmann (, born 30 July 1964) is a German professional football manager and former player. Klinsmann played for several prominent clubs in Europe including VfB Stuttgart, Inter Milan, Monaco, Tottenham Hotspur, and Bayern Munich. He ...

, he retired from international play on 31 March 1988, scoring in a friendly with

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

Post-playing career

Ahead of the 1998–99 season Allofs was appointed head coach at former club

. In April, with the club placed last in the table, he was fired. In July 1999, Allofs became general manager of Werder Bremen. In the 2003–04 season he and head coach Thomas Schaaf led Bremen to the double of

and

. This success was followed by six qualifications to the

. In the 2008–09 season they also reached the

. In November 2012, Allofs left Bremen to join VfL Wolfsburg as their new sporting director, remaining there until December 2016.

Career statistics

International goals

:''Scores and results list Germany's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Allofs goal''.

Honours

As player

Fortuna Düsseldorf *

: 1978–79, 1979–80 *

runner-up: 1978–79 1. FC Köln *

: 1982–83 *

runner-up: 1985–86 Marseille *

Ligue 1 Ligue 1, officially known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the French football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. ...

: 1988–89 * Coupe de France: 1988–89 Bordeaux *

: runner-up 1989–90 Werder Bremen *

: 1992–93 *

: 1990–91 *

: 1991–92 West Germany *

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA). The competition is conte ...

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – In ...

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 has ...

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 en ...

Individual *

top goalscorer: 1978–79, 1984–85 *'' kicker''

Team of the Season: 1978–79, 1984–85, 1990–91 *

top goalscorer:

* UEFA Cup top goalscorer: 1985–86

As general manager

Werder Bremen *

: 2003–04 *

runner-up: 2008–09

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Allofs, Klaus 1956 births Living people Footballers from Düsseldorf German footballers West German footballers Association football forwards Bundesliga players Fortuna Düsseldorf players 1. FC Köln players SV Werder Bremen players Ligue 1 players FC Girondins de Bordeaux players Olympique de Marseille players Germany international footballers 1986 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 1984 players UEFA Euro 1980 players UEFA European Championship-winning players West German expatriate footballers German expatriate footballers German expatriate sportspeople in France Expatriate footballers in France Kicker-Torjägerkanone Award winners German football managers Fortuna Düsseldorf managers