Marcel Schäfer

Marcel Schäfer during training (2007)

Marcel Schäfer ( born June 7, 1984 in Aschaffenburg ) is a German footballer who plays for VfL Wolfsburg.

Career

Association

At the age of six years, Shepherd began at his hometown club SV Eintracht Strass Bessenbach to playing football and changed the age of twelve to Viktoria Aschaffenburg. Ernst Tanner, the former youth coordinator of the TSV 1860 Munich, asked him in 1999 to the nation tournament in Duisburg, if he could imagine to switch to the lions. He invited him and his family for five days free of charge and for shepherd who always wanted to Munich, it quickly became clear that he would switch to the lions, although Eintracht Frankfurt was interested in him. So he moved in 1999 with fifteen years for TSV 1860 München. His former amateur coach and professional coach Reiner Maurer later trained him from midfielder to defender. At 17 Years' Shepherd threatened the career end because of a torn ACL. For the season 2003/ 04 the full-back moved first into the professional squad of " 60 ". On 11 Round he came to his debut in the Bundesliga. He appeared as a substitute against VfL Bochum in the 89th minute for Markus Weissenberger. It was the only league commitment to shepherd this season. In the following years, established the offensive defender and became a regular player. In the first round of 2006/ 07 he was the only professional in the " lions " who stood in any game on the court. After the revival had been missed three times in a row, he joined in July 2007, again in the Bundesliga for VfL Wolfsburg. There he managed to immediately enforce and marked in his first year VfL six goals in 29 games. His first Bundesliga goal scored Shepherd November 4, 2007 at 3:5 against VfL Bochum. On 18 May 2009 he was elected to in Barsinghausen " Lower Saxony's Footballer of the Year." At the end of his second year with the wolves the first German team in the club's champion. Apart Andrea Barzagli and Christian Gentner Shepherd was the only VfL actor who played all league games. In all, he missed just 22 minutes of playing time.

In the following two seasons remained Shepherd the most consistent regular players of the Wolves and missed at this time only two league games. From January to August 2011, Shepherd was the successor of Edin Džeko, who had left the club, captain of VfL Wolfsburg. He was succeeded by Christian Träsch.

On 31 October 2013, the VfL ​​Wolfsburg announced that the contract with Shepherd was prematurely extended until 2017 and that Shepherd will initially take over two years, a function in the club after his playing career.

National

On 13 November 2008 he was first nominated by national coach Joachim Loew of the German national team for the friendly against England and was in the game on 19 November 2008 made ​​his debut in the 1-2 defeat. Shepherd came from the 77th minute to use. His first international match from the beginning graduated from Shepherd on 29 May 2009 against China. This was followed by six more international appearances to August 2010, for the football World Cup in 2010 but was not considered.

Achievements

• German Champion 2009 with VfL Wolfsburg
• Lower Saxony's Footballer of the Year: 2009

Find out more

• Marcel Schäfer is single and has two sons. He completed a correspondence course on Sports Management IS - study institute in Dusseldorf and there is another distance learning sports marketing.
• His father Markus Schäfer was also a professional footballer. He graduated in the period 1985-1989 for Viktoria Aschaffenburg 80 games in the Bundesliga 2.

Charity commitment

Marcel Schäfer has for the youth campaign " iCHANCE - Read Better, Write Better! " of committed Bundesverband literacy and basic education and points out that more than seven million adults can not read and write properly.