Aleksander Knavs

Aleksander Knavs [ alɛksandɛr knaʊ̯s ] ( born December 5, 1975 in Maribor) is a Slovenian football player.

Club career

Knavs began his career in 1993 at the Slovenian capital club Olimpija Ljubljana. After four years and won two Slovenian championships ( 1994, 1995 ) of the central defender moved in 1997 to Austria for FC Tirol Innsbruck. There Knavs was his biggest sponsors Kurt Jara -team regular. He twice won the Austrian Championship (2000, 2001) before he moved on to Germany.

In 2001 he signed a contract with 1.FC Kaiserslautern. There he was able to convince at first and became captain. But in 2003 he fell out with then- coach Eric Gerets, whereupon a change Knavs to VfL Bochum was agreed, but was only revealed later. As estimated by Knavs coach Kurt Jara Gerets replaced, the change had already been fixed.

For the season 2004 / 05, after 64 league games for the Palatinate, the Slovenian went to VfL, where he stayed for only a year to follow his favorite coach Jara 2005, this time to Salzburg by Dietrich Mateschitz taken over FC Red Bull Salzburg. In the year under Jara still a regular player, he fell at the next coach Giovanni Trapattoni in favor and only came to a few more missions. His contract ran until January 2008, till then trying Knavs to keep fit during training. As so-called "cadres corpse " he won in 2007 for the third time the Austrian Championship. By 2008 he was still at the Salzburg under contract before his contract expired.

International career

Knavs debut for the Slovenian national football team on 5 February 1998 against Iceland, a country during Tournament in Cyprus. After this mission, he was a regular in the back four of Slovenians for the qualifying matches for the European Football Championship in 2000 in the Netherlands and Belgium. After Slovenia, qualified through the play-off triumph over Ukraine for the European Championship, Knavs was used in two games of the finals. It was used against Spain and Norway for a total of 102 minutes. Slovenia was eliminated in the group stage. In the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup 2002 in Japan and South Korea Knavs also belonged to the tribe of Slovenes. After Slovenia by a play-off triumph ( this time against Romania) was qualified for the World Cup finals again, this time he was a regular player at the World Cup and got playing time against South Africa and Spain. For the next two finals - 2004 European Football Championship, FIFA World Cup 2006 - Knavs belonged again to the root, but Slovenia could not qualify. He made his last international match on 6 September 2006 in Sofia, in the 0:3 defeat against Bulgaria. Overall, Aleksander Knavs played 66 times for the Slovenian national team, scoring three goals.

Achievements

  • Participation in the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea
  • Participation in the Euro 2000 in Holland and Belgium
  • 2 x Slovenian champion with Olimpija Ljubljana 1994.1995
  • 1 x Slovenian Cup Winners' Cup with Olimpija Ljubljana 1996
  • 3 x Austrian champion with FC Tirol Innsbruck 2000, 2001 and FC Red Bull Salzburg in 2007
Defender (association football) 1. FC Kaiserslautern
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