Lothar Matthaus

Lothar Herbert Matthäus (born 21 March 1961 in Erlangen, Bavaria) is a German former soccer player and coach. He played in five World Cups (1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998) and shares the record for the most participation in different editions of the World Cup, along with Gianluigi Buffon, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and the Mexicans Rafael Márquez, Guillermo Ochoa, Andres Guardado, and Antonio Carbajal. He also claims to be the second player with the most games played in the World Cup with 25 appearances between 1982 and 1998, only surpassed by Lionel Messi. He also won the 1980 Euro Cup and played in the 1984, 1988 and 2000 editions. In 1999, at the age of 38, he was chosen as the best German footballer of the year, which he had already won in 1990.

On December 14, 2020, he was included as a defensive midfielder in the historic Ballon d'Or Dream Team.

Trajectory

Footballer

Matthäus announcing a criminality at the 1994 United States World Cup.

She was born in Erlangen, Germany. He spent his early playing days in the youth team of FC Herzogenaurach, a small town in Bavaria, as a midfielder.

Matthäus began his professional career in 1979 with Bundesliga side Borussia Mönchengladbach, with whom he played until 1984. He then played for Bayern Munich, winning the German league twice and the DFB-Pokal. He also reached the final of the European Cup in 1987, in FC Porto's 2-1 victory against the Bavarian team.

Matthäus and his teammate Andreas Brehme were transferred to Serie A FC Internazionale Milano in 1988, winning the Scudetto that season, and the Italian Super Cup.

Matthäus continued to enjoy success with Inter, winning the UEFA Cup in 1991 and being named FIFA Men's Player of the Year. In the final, he scored a penalty in the first leg in a win over AS Roma. He returned to Bayern Munich in 1992, winning four Bundesliga titles, two DFB-Pokals, another UEFA Cup and reaching a second UEFA Champions League final in 1999.

The only major honor that eluded Matthäus in competition was the UEFA Champions League. What is known, two minutes from collecting the winner's medal in 1999 against Manchester United, that he scored two goals in the last minutes of the final, after he was substituted after 86 minutes of play, while the team still he won 1-0. As the two teams left to collect their medals, Lothar immediately removed the runners-up medal, as it was the second time he had been on the losing side in similar circumstances; in the 1987 final. Bayern would win the Champions League in 2000-01 and later the Intercontinental Cup. His last official match with Bayern took place in Munich on March 8, 2000, against Real Madrid, which Bayern won 4-1.

During the 1999-2000 season, Matthäus left for the MetroStars, a team in Major League Soccer in the United States. He played in the US from March to October 2000 and retired from professional soccer afterward. During his season with the MetroStars, he traveled to St. Tropez, when he was supposed to be recovering from his back.

Coach

Lothar Matthäus started out as manager at Rapid Vienna, with mixed results, in December 2002 he was hired by Partizan Belgrade mid-season to replace the recently sacked Ljubiša Tumbaković. Matthäus achieved the success required by leading the team to the 2002/03 League title, but his finest moment with the club came in August 2003 when Partizan eliminated Newcastle United in the 3rd qualifying round to reach the UEFA Champions League 2003/04, albeit in a difficult group with powerhouse Real Madrid, champions FC Porto, and Olympique de Marseille.

In December 2003, Matthäus made an abrupt announcement to leave his position at Partizan only to follow up the next day with another contract, as manager of the Hungarian national team (2004/05) which he managed for 28 games (11 wins, 3 draws and 14 losses) and was given the task of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup. After having played a difficult group, with Sweden, Croatia and Bulgaria, the goal seemed increasingly difficult as the results they were not as expected. However, Matthäus was not fired until the end of the campaign, and was even offered Hungarian citizenship, which at the time he said he would accept. Although later this was not confirmed.

On January 11, 2006, Matthäus signed a one-year contract as coach of Clube Atlético Paranaense of Brazil. After only seven games played (5 wins and 2 draws), Matthaüs resigned in March 2006 for family reasons.

On May 19, 2006, Matthäus was announced as manager of Red Bull Salzburg in Austria for the 2006/07 season. The Austrian team also appointed Giovanni Trapattoni (who managed Matthäus at Inter Milan and Bayern Munich) as sporting director on the same day. Despite the fact that the Austrian club won the league trophy, Matthäus was dismissed from the team and went on to train Maccabi Netanya, from Israel. Due to financial problems, the Israeli club decided in April 2009 to terminate the Bavarian coach's contract.

In October 2009 he confirmed his trip to Argentina to be Technical Director of Racing Club. When in Racing they were already confirming the arrival of Matthäus, his manager warned at the last minute that the coach was canceling his trip. On his official page he explained that his decision was due to "lack of bank guarantees".

On September 21, 2010, he became the new head coach of the Bulgarian soccer team, signing a one-year contract with the option to renew for two more.

Participations with the national team

Participations in World Cups

World	Headquarters	Outcome	Parties	Goles
1982 World Cup	SpainSpain	Subfield	2	0
1986 World Cup	Mexico Mexico	Subfield	7	1
1990 World Cup	ItalyItaly	Champion	7	4
1994 World Cup	United States	Final rooms	5	1
1998 World Cup	France	Final rooms	4	0

Participations in Eurocups

Euro	Headquarters	Outcome	Parties	Goles
Euro80	ItalyItaly	Champion	1	0
Euro 1984	France	First phase	3	0
Euro 1988	Western Germany	Semifinals	4	1
Euro 2000	BelgiumBelgium	First phase	3	0

Participations in Confederations Cups

Cup	Headquarters	Outcome	Parties	Goles
Confederations Cup 1999	Mexico Mexico	First round	3	1

Football World Cup Matches

N°	Date	Tournament	Outcome	Rival	Phase
1.	20 June 1982	Spain 1982	4-1	Chile	First phase
2.	25 June 1982	Spain 1982	1-0	Austria	First phase
3.	4 June 1986	Mexico 1986	1-1	Uruguay	First phase
4.	8 June 1986	Mexico 1986	2-1	Scotland	First phase
5.	13 June 1986	Mexico 1986	0-2	Denmark	First phase
6.	17 June 1986	Mexico 1986	1-0	Morocco	Final Octavos
7.	21 June 1986	Mexico 1986	0-0 (4-1 p.m.)	Mexico	Final rooms
8.	25 June 1986	Mexico 1986	2-0	France	Semifinals
9.	29 June 1986	Mexico 1986	2-3	Argentina	Final
10.	10 June 1990	Italy 1990	4-1	Yugoslavia	First phase
11.	15 June 1990	Italy 1990	5-1	United Arab Emirates	First phase
12.	19 June 1990	Italy 1990	1-1	Colombia	First phase
13.	24 June 1990	Italy 1990	2-1	Netherlands	Final Octavos
14.	1 July 1990	Italy 1990	1-0	Czechoslovakia	Final rooms
15.	4 July 1990	Italy 1990	1-1 (4-3 p.m.)	England	Semifinals
16.	8 July 1990	Italy 1990	1-0	Argentina	Final
17.	17 June 1994	United States 1994	1-0	Bolivia	First phase
18.	21 June 1994	United States 1994	1-1	Spain	First phase
19.	27 June 1994	United States 1994	3-2	South Korea	First phase
20.	2 July 1994	United States 1994	3-2	Belgium	Final Octavos
21.	10 July 1994	United States 1994	1-2	Bulgaria	Final rooms
22.	21 June 1998	France 1998	2-2	Yugoslavia	First phase
23.	25 June 1998	France 1998	2-0	Iran	First phase
24.	29 June 1998	France 1998	2-1	Mexico	Final Octavos
25.	4 July 1998	France 1998	0-3	Croatia	Final rooms

Statistics

As a player

Club	Div.	Season	League		Cups National(1)		Tournaments International(2)		Total
			Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles
Borussia Mönchengladbach Western Germany	1. a	1979-80	28	4	2	-	11	2	41	6
		1980-81	33	10	5	2	-	-	38	12
		1981-82	33	3	5	4	4	1	42	8
		1982-83	34	8	5	2	-	-	39	10
		1983-84	34	11	6	4	-	-	40	15
	Total club		162	36	23	12	15	3	200	51
Bayern Munich Western Germany	1. a	1984-85	33	16	6	0	5	1	44	17
		1985-86	23	10	5	2	3	0	31	12
		1986-87	31	14	3	1	7	4	41	19
		1987-88	26	17	4	3	4	1	34	21
	Total club		113	57	18	6	19	6	150	69
Internazionale ItalyItaly	1. a	1988-89	32	9	7	3	5	0	44	12
		1989-90	25	11	2	2	2	0	29	13
		1990-91	31	16	3	1	12	6	46	23
		1991-92	27	4	5	1	2	0	34	5
	Total club		115	40	11	7	21	6	153	53
Bayern Munich GermanyGermany	1. a	1992-93	28	8	-	-	-	-	28	8
		1993-94	33	8	3	1	4	1	40	10
		1994-95	16	5	2	0	6	0	24	5
		1995-96	19	1	-	-	7	0	26	1
		1996-97	28	1	3	0	2	0	33	1
		1997-98	25	3	5	0	5	0	35	3
		1998-99	25	1	7	0	12	1	44	2
		1999-00	15	1	2	0	9	0	26	1
	Total club		189	28	22	1	45	2	256	31
MetroStars New York United States	1. a	2000	16	0	7	0	-	-	23	0
Total in your career			595	161	87	26	100	17	782	204
(1) Includes data from the German Cup, the Italian Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, the German League Cup, the German Super Cup, the Italian Super Cup and the MLS Cup (2) Includes data from the European Cup/ UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Cup and the European Recoup

As a coach

Club	Country	Year	PJ	PG	PE	P	% v.
S. K. Rapid Vienna	AustriaAustria	2001-02	32	9	9	14	37.5%
F. K. Partizan Belgrade	SerbiaSerbia	2002-03	43	28	6	9	69.77%
Selection of Hungary	HungaryHungary	2003-05	28	11	3	14	42.86%
Athletic Paranaense	BrazilBrazil	2006	7	5	2	0	80.95%
Maccabi Netanya	IsraelIsrael	2008-09	45	19	14	12	52.59%
Selection of Bulgaria	BulgariaBulgaria	2010-11	11	3	3	5	36.36%

Honours of Prizes

As a player

National titles

Title	Club	Year
League Championship	F. C. Bayern	1985
League Championship		1986
Cup		1986
League Championship		1987
Supercopa		1987
League Championship	F. C. Internazionale	1989
Supercopa		1989
League Championship	F. C. Bayern	1994
League Championship		1997
League Cup		1997
Cup		1998
League Cup		1998
League Championship		1999
League Cup		1999
League Championship		2000
Cup		2000

International Titles

Title	Equipment (*)	Year
Euro	Germany	1980
World Cup		1990
UEFA Cup	F. C. Internazionale	1991
UEFA Cup	F. C. Bayern	1996

(*) Including selection

As a coach

National titles

Title	Club	Country	Year
First Division of Serbia and Montenegro	Partizan Belgrade	Serbia and Montenegro	2002-03

Individual awards