Mehmet Scholl to Retire
December 13, 2006
Bayern Munich's veteran midfielder Mehmet Scholl will retire from soccer at the end of the season but will remain at the club in a non-playing capacity, club manager Uli Hoeness said this week.
"Mehmet will call it a day at the end of the season," Hoeness told the Bild newspaper Tuesday, adding that Scholl -- the only professional footballer to win eight Bundesliga titles -- would be remaining with the club to work with the defending champions' youth team.
"He might even do this at board level," Hoeness said.
"Bayern are losing a much loved player," said Hoeness of the club's longest-serving player. Scholl's last match for the German champions will be a friendly against Barcelona in August 2007. He extended his contract by one year in May until the end of the 2006/07 season, his 15th campaign in the number 7 jersey with the Munich club.
The 36-year-old has played in the Bundesliga since 1990, making 384 league appearances for Bayern and 58 for his hometown club, Karlsruhe, scoring a total of 97 goals. He has also won 36 caps playing for Germany.
But 17 years at the top have taken their toll on Scholl, who was an idol for fans in his youth, lauded for his technical ability, his creative playmaking, his dribbling skills and his free-kicks, and has battled throughout his career with countless muscle and ligament injuries.
Scholl's latest setback came only last Wednesday when he sustained a muscle fiber injury in training, meaning he won't be fit to play until next year.
Injuries restrict Scholl to bit-part role in final season
Coach Felix Magath has said he intends to only use Scholl as a substitute between now and the end of the season but fans can say goodbye to the player in the Franz Beckenbauer Cup tournament against current European champions Barca next August.
Since his move from Karlsruhe to Bayern in 1992, Scholl has achieved everything that can be achieved in German club football.
Apart from his eight league medals, Scholl also helped Bayern to five German Cups as well as the 1996 UEFA Cup and 2001 Champions League titles.
In early 2001, he was voted Player of the Year 2000 by the professional players of the First and Second Bundesliga, and in May 2005, fans voted him one of the eleven greatest Bayern players of all time
An international career of disappointments
Scholl's only disappointment comes from his time with the German national team. Ill-timed injuries meant he never made an appearance at a World Cup and he made just three appearances at Euro 1996 in England, when he was substituted each time.
He played in the quarter-final, semi-final, and final. He has the curious distinction of being the player who, in the 69th minute of the final when the Czech Republic were leading 1-0, was subbed out for the then relatively unknown Oliver Bierhoff who went on to score the two goals that turned the match around for Germany, catapulting Bierhoff to national and international fame.
Scholl also played in all three of Germany's games at Euro 2000, scoring Germany's only goal in the tournament.
He won his last international cap in February 2002 when Germany beat Israel 7-1 in Kaiserslautern.
Before the 2006 World Cup Campaign, more than 100,000 people signed an online petition -- "Mehmet für Deutschland" -- for his inclusion in Jürgen Klinsmann's squad for the tournament on home soil. However, he was overlooked by his former international and club colleague.