Oliver Kahn Biography
The only goalkeeper to win the Golden Ball in World Cup’s history, Oliver Kahn is considered one of the best goalkeepers in football history. In this article, we will take a look at his biography, stay tuned.
Oliver Rolf Kahn, born 15 June 1969 is a former German football player. Playing as a goalkeeper, the player started his career with the Karlsruher SC football team. He played his first professional match in 1987. In 1994, he was transferred to Bayern Munich for a fee of 4,600,000 German marks, where he played until the end of his career.
Having won eight Bundesligas, six DFB-Pokals, one UEFA Cup (1996), one UEFA Champions League (2001) and one Intercontinental Cup (2001), Kahn has become one of the most successful German football players in recent history. His individual achievements have earned him four consecutive UEFA Europe's Best Goalkeeper, three IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper and two times Germany's Footballer of the Year. With the Golden Ball Award at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, he became the first and only goalkeeper in the history of the tournament to win this award.
Kahn, who played for the German national football team from 1994 to 2006, started to appear in the first 11 after Andreas Köpke left the national team. The goalkeeper led his team to the finals in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, conceding only three goals in all matches, however, Oliver Kahn was criticized for his performance at the 2-0 loss to
Brazilin the final match. However, he eventually managed to become the best player of the tournament and receive the Golden Ball Award.
All You Need to Know About Oliver Kahn Biography
Kahn received a job offer as a sports director of Schalke 04 in 2009 after retirement as a footballer, but he rejected the deal. In 2010, Kahn earned a coaching certificate and a Master's degree in Business Management (MBA) in 2012. He also has worked with ZDF as a sports commentator. He also funded numerous campaigns, including the 'Bunt kickt gut' Munich street-football league and the Justin Rockola Organization, aimed at keeping young people from alcohol, drugs and violence.
Oliver Kahn Information
In this section of Oliver Kahn biography we want to take a look at some more general info about him, so stay tuned to get to know Oliver Kahn better.
Oliver Kahn Bio
Full Name: Oliver Rolf Kahn
Nickname: The Titan
Profession: Professional Footballer
Oliver Kahn Physical Stats
Weight: 91 Kg
Height: 1.88 m
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Blonde
Oliver Kahn Football Information
Position: Goalkeeper
Jersey Number: 1
Professional Debut: 1987
Oliver Kahn Date of Birth and Personal Info
Date of Birth: 15 June 1969
Birth Place: Karlsruhe, West Germany
Zodiac Sign: Gemini
Nationality: German
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Oliver Kahn biography
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Oliver Kahn Early Life
Oliver Kahn is the younger son of Latvian-born Baltic-German and former Karlsruhe Bundesliga football player Rolf Kahn. Oliver Kahn's older brother Axel is also a former professional football player from Karlsruhe.
In
Oliver Kahn childhood
, he spent his free time mowing the lawn in his garden at the request of his mother, who encouraged him to go out with his friends. He was always self-taught and developed an exaggerated perfectionism in order to follow in the footsteps of his admired Sepp Maier, the legendary German goalkeeper of the 1970s, whose effective temperament only Kahn would be able to replicate.
Oliver Kahn graduated from the Helmholtz-Gymnasium in Karlsruhe in 1988 and began studying economics at the Fernuniversität in Hagen, Germany, but only completed his undergraduate studies. From 2009 to 2011 inclusive, he enrolled in the General Management program with a minor in sports management at the private university Schloss Seeburg, Germany, where he graduated with a Master of Business Administration degree. Stay tuned to read more about Oliver Kahn biography and his career.
Oliver Kahn Profile
When Oliver Kahn started playing football at the age of six, he was initially a field player, but soon switched to goalkeeping. According to his own statements, the reason for this was a "Sepp Maier Edition" goalkeeper's uniform that he had received from his grandfather for his birthday. His first club was Karlsruher SC, where Kahn's father Rolf had already played in the Bundesliga from 1963 to 1965. His brother Axel also played several professional games for KSC. At the goalkeeper position, he went through the youth ranks and then played in the club's amateur team.
He then sat on the bench for the first time with the first team in the 1987/88 season and made his Bundesliga debut against Cologne on November 27, 1987. By November 1990, he had earned a regular spot in KSC's Bundesliga team and played as the undisputed number one goalkeeper until his transfer. KSC, under coach Winfried Schäfer, finished 6th in both 1993 and 1994, its best-ever finish in the Bundesliga. Kahn was also in goal for the 1993 Miracle of the Wildpark, when KSC beat FC Valencia 7-0 in a UEFA Cup match. Stay tuned to read more about Oliver Kahn biography and his Bayern career.
Bayern Munich
For 4.6 million German marks (around 2.4 million euros), he moved to FC Bayern Munich in 1994 as Raimond Aumann's successor. It was the record transfer fee ever paid for a Bundesliga goalkeeper at the time. During his time at FC Bayern, he won the UEFA Cup, eight German Bundesliga titles and many other honors. Together with Mehmet Scholl, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm, he shares second place with eight German championship titles, behind Franck Ribéry with nine.
Kahn was regularly mobbed during his club career by opposition fans throwing bananas at him to taunt him for his supposed resemblance to a gorilla. Therefore, a remarkable occurrence happened in the 2000/01 season in the match versus Hamburger SV on Matchday 34 (May 19, 2001) in the lengthy duel for the German Bundesliga title against Schalke 04.
Due to the banana throwing and the ensuing cleanup, the match was kicked out late. In the 94th minute, Patrik Andersson scored an indirect free kick for the final score of 1:1, which sealed the German Championship against
FC Schalke 04, a team which had already been considered champions.
Kahn played his 500th Bundesliga match versus
Borussia Dortmundon the first day of the 2006/07 season and played his 100th Champions League game against Inter Milan on December 5, 2006. In his 535th Bundesliga match against Hamburger SV, he substituted Eike Immel as the record goalkeeper on September 2, 2007.
In the 2001/02 season, he tied the record among goalkeepers for the season with the most Bundesliga appearances without conceding a goal (19 games) and was only surpassed 13 years later by Manuel Neuer with 20 Bundesliga games without conceding a goal. Kahn remains the Bundesliga goalkeeper with the most minutes played (49,302) and with the most games played without conceding a goal (204).
Kahn played his last competitive match on May 17, 2008, the final matchday of the 2007/08 Bundesliga season, when he left the field in the 89th minute in the match against Hertha BSC and replaced by his successor Michael Rensing and he got a standing ovation from the fans. Munich won the match. The match was Kahn's 557th in the Bundesliga, which finished 4-1. That season Kahn set a new Bundesliga record with only 21 goals conceded. The last competitive goal Kahn conceded was scored by Waleri Domowtschijski.
FC Bayern then went on another trip to Asia, where Kahn played his last regular match for FC Bayern on May 27, 2008, in Kolkata, India, against Mohun Bagan AC in front of around 120,000 spectators. Bayern won the match 3-0 and Kahn was given a motor scooter, among other gifts, by the hosts.
A farewell match for Kahn then took place on September 2, 2008, at the Allianz Arena between
FC Bayern Munichand the German XI. Before the match, he was named honorary captain of FC Bayern Munich. Kahn was replaced by Michael Rensing in the 75th minute and the game was briefly stopped to bid Kahn farewell. The match ended 1-1.
German National Team
Although Kahn had already been called up to the national team in 1994, his debut international level took place on June 23, 1995, in a match against
Switzerland. He was called up for the 1996 European Championship, although he did not play a single match. He participated in the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, playing seven matches against Saudi Arabia,
Cameroon, Ireland, Paraguay, the United States, South Korea and Brazil.
Kahn was the captain of the German National Team and played all the matches of that World Cup and together with Oliver Bierhoff and Oliver Neuville he formed the trio of "the three Olivers". He had superb performances that allowed a not very brilliant German team to reach the final at the Tokyo Stadium, where, however, a bad mistake by the goalkeeper allowed Brazil to be proclaimed Penta-champion by 2:0. At the award ceremony, Oliver was very sad that his mistake was the reason they lost the match.
"Making a mistake is always disappointing and painful, but it is ten times more so when it happens in a final match. I find no consolation. I should have caught that ball, but it got away from me," he told the press. Even so, Kahn received three goals in the World Cup and was decisive for his team, for which he was chosen the best player of the tournament, and received the Golden Ball and the Lev Yashin Award.
Shortly before the start of the 2006 World Cup, Jürgen Klinsmann, then head coach of the German national team, announced the appointment of Jens Lehmann to the national team, leaving Oliver Kahn as the second goalkeeper. This came about as a result of a dispute between German football legend Franz Beckenbauer and the national team's coach.
During the 2006 World Cup, Oliver Kahn was the second goalkeeper of the German National Team, behind his teammate Jens Lehmann, playing only the match against Portugal where they won 1-3. At the end of the tournament, he announced his retirement from the German national team.
Style of Play
Oliver Kahn is a goalkeeper with a strong mind. A hard-faced goalkeeper with a strong character, he knew how to rise to the level of the best in the world through hard work and concentration. An authoritative player, capable of harshly punishing his teammates on and off the field in the event of poor performances, Kahn is also a role model thanks to his winning temperament and his refusal to give up. These characteristics and his exploits on the field made him not only the best goalkeeper in the German Bundesliga but also one of the best German players of his time. Stay tuned to read more about Oliver Kahn biography and his reception.
Reception
Oliver Kahn has been widely acclaimed as one of the best goalkeepers in football history, and the fact that he is the only goalkeeper in the history of World Cups to win Golden Ball could be a proof for that claim. Kahn was nicknamed "King Kahn" or "The Giant" because he showed great standing and impressed people throughout his professional career.
Kahn gained popularity in Asia during the 2002 FIFA World Cup, held in Japan and South Korea. He appeared in several television commercials, including a Japanese bank commercial. In 2009, he was a judge on a television show on CCTV looking for China’s best youth goalkeeper. Also in the same year, a wax statue of Kahn was unveiled on the Berlin arm of the Madame Tussauds museum.
Goal Celebration
As Kahn was a goalkeeper and he never scored a goal in his 866 total club and international career matches, we never had the chance to see him celebrating a goal!
Oliver Kahn outside Football
Both during his time as a football player and also after his retirement, Oliver Kahn had an active life outside football. For starters, he’s really into writing books, in May 2004, Kahn published his autobiography named 'Number One'. It was followed four years later by his second book, 'I. Success Comes from Within'. Since September 2010, his book for young people entitled 'How to Achieve What You Want.' was published.
He has also worked as a football analyst in different TV shows. After the 2008 European Championship in Austria and Switzerland, Kahn took over as an expert on ZDF soccer broadcasts alongside Johannes B. Kerner, who was later replaced by Katrin Müller-Hohenstein. For the 2012 European Football Championship, Kahn appeared as an expert together with Katrin Müller-Hohenstein in ZDF's coverage on the Baltic Sea beach in Usedom.
This coverage was criticized in some media: Among other things, it was criticized that Kahn "did not spark a fire of analysis" as was credited to the ARD expert Mehmet Scholl. For the 2014 World Cup, Oliver Kahn appeared as an expert alongside Oliver Welke.
Since the end of 2012, Oliver Kahn has been a brand ambassador for the betting company Tipico. In connection with the German Football League's partnership with the betting company, Kahn's role was criticized by Transparency International Germany. His activities for Tipico contradict ZDF's guidelines, according to which advertising by athletes and officials must be avoided because of their role model character.
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Oliver Kahn life story
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Oliver Kahn Personal Life
In this section of
Oliver Kahn biography
, we want to take a closer look at his personal life. Stay tuned!
Family, Children and Relationships
In June 1999, Kahn married his longtime girlfriend Simone Belz. With her, he has a daughter, who was born in 1998 and a son born in 2003. The same year Kahn and his wife decided to get divorced. From 2003 to 2008 he had a relationship with the later presenter Verena Kerth.
In 2008, Kahn returned to his marriage with Simone Belz, and once again in 2009, he announced their separation. On July 8, 2011, he married the model Svenja Kögel, with whom he has a son born in 2011 and a daughter born in 2016.
Oliver Kahn religion
is Christianity.
Philanthropy
Oliver Kahn is amongst the German footballers actively involved in charitable works. He supports three social projects with the Munich street soccer league buntkicktgut, the Justin Rockola emergency aid program and the Sepp Herberger Foundation. He has also set up the Oliver Kahn Foundation, which has been working with the Roland Berger Foundation at schools in nine German states since fall 2011. The foundation works with the self-developed program "Du packst es!" (You can do it!), which is designed to increase students' motivation. The foundation is helping to turn Oliver Kahn, the sports hero, into Oliver Kahn, the sports brand.
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Oliver Kahn biography
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Legal Issues
During his career and also after his retirement, Oliver Kahn had several legal issues to his name. In one case Oliver Kahn banned the selling of EA Sports ‘World Cup 2002’ game in Germany as he never gave the permission of his images to be used in the game. The company compensated Olive Kahn.
In 2016 Oliver Kahn sued two German magazines of using his children’s photographs, however, the court decided that the two magazines did not constitute a violation of the applicants’ Article 8 rights.
In April 2011, upon failing to report more than EUR 6,000 in expensive clothes he purchased on a trip to Dubai, a German court charged Kahn EUR 125,000 for tax avoidance.
Oliver Kahn Career Statistics
During his professional football career, Oliver Kahn has played many matches both at club level for
Karlsruher SCand FC Bayern Munich and international level for
Germany national team. Stay tuned to read more about Oliver Kahn biography and his club and international stats.
Club
The German legendary goalkeeper Oliver Kahn started his professional football career back in 1987 at Karlsruher SC, playing for the club for 7 seasons. During all these years, he was able to play 148 matches for them, of which 128 were at Bundesliga, 10 were at DFB-Pokal and the other 10 matches he played was at European competitions.
After Moving to FC Bayern Munich in 1994, he became the first team goalkeeper there and for the next 14 seasons, he played a total of 632 matches for German giants. Olive Kahn played 429 matches for Bayern in Bundesliga, 57 matches in DFB-Poka, 13 matches in DFL-Ligapokal and 130 matches at European competitions. Overall, in his professional football career, Oliver Kahn has played 780 matches for these two clubs.
International
Oliver Kahn nationality
is German and therefore at the international level, he has played 86 matches for Die Mannschaft. His first match for the national team was against Switzerland in 1995. His last match for Germany was the third-place playoff against
Portugalin 2006 World Cup, which they won 3-1. After the match, Kahn announced that he no longer wants to represent his nation at the international level. Of his 86 caps for Die Mannschaft, he was the team captain 49 times.
Oliver Kahn Honors
At club level, Olive Kahn’s major title wins were absolutely at Bayern Munich, having won Bundesliga 8 times, DFB-Pokal 6 times, DFB-Ligapokal 5 times, UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup once. On the international level, he has won 1996 UEFA European Championship with German and finished second and thirds at 2002 and 2006 World Cups respectively.
Of his notable individual honors we can include FIFA World Cup Golden Ball in 2002, Best Bundesliga Keeper for 7 times, kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season 2 times, IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper 3 times, Best European Goalkeeper 4 times between 1999 and 2002 and German Footballer of the Year two times.
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