Sport: Bastian Schweinsteiger, desktop wallpaper nr. 25769

Club career

Bastian Schweinsteiger signed for Bayern Munich as a youth team player on 1 Jul. 1998 (14 years ago) and rose through the club's youth sides. A talented youth ski racer, he had to decide between pursuing a professional career in skiing or football at the age of 14. Having won the German youth championship in Jul. 2002 (10 years ago), Schweinsteiger quickly earned a place in the reserves, producing a string of solid third division displays.

A left midfielder, who can also play on the right, he has a hard shot, great dribbling skills and is a specialist at set pieces. He can also play as a defensive midfielder or just behind the strikers. After just two training sessions with the first team, coach Ottmar Hitzfeld gave Schweinsteiger his debut as a late substitute in a UEFA Champions League game against RC Lens in Nov. 2002 (10 years ago), and the youngster made an immediate impact, creating a goal for Markus Feulner within minutes. He signed a professional contract the following month and went on to appear in 14 Bundesliga games in 2002�03, helping Bayern to a league and cup double. The next season he played 26 Bundesliga games.

Schweinsteiger scored his first Bayern goal against VfL Wolfsburg in sep. 2003 (9 years ago).

Surprisingly sent back to Bayern's amateurs by new coach Felix Magath at the beginning of the 2004�05 season despite his international exploits of the summer in the Confederations Cup, Schweinsteiger swiftly returned to play a role in the double-winning campaign and scored in Bayern's Champions League quarter-final first-leg defeat at Chelsea.

Over the next three seasons, up until the end of 2007�08, Bastian made 135 appearances in all competitions for Bayern Munich (UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga and German Cup), scoring 10 goals in the process.

On 15 Aug. 2008 (4 years ago), Schweinsteiger scored the first Bundesliga goal of the 2008�09 season. He extended his contract at Bayern until 2012 (this year) on 18 Nov. 2008 (4 years ago).

International career

He made his international debut in 2004 (8 years ago) in a friendly against Hungary. Bayern's number 31 earned rave reviews for his Euro 2004 (8 years ago) performances in Portugal, showing combative skills and even setting up the opening goal for once Bayern teammate Michael Ballack in Germany's 2-1 loss against the Czech Republic.

He scored his first two international goals on 8 Jun. 2005 (7 years ago) against Russia and scored his first goal at a major tournament against Tunisia on Jun. 18, 2005 (7 years ago) at the Confederations Cup in Germany. This was followed up by two strikes in the third place play-off game at the 2006 (6 years ago) World Cup, also in his home country. He nearly scored a hat-trick as he caused Armando Petit's own goal to make the score 3-1.

During Euro 2008 (4 years ago) qualifiers, he scored two goals en route to a 13-0 win over San Marino in San Marino. He scored the third goal in Germany's 4-1 win over Slovakia in Bratislava.

At the age of 22, he had already played 41 matches for the German national team, a record for any German player at the time. This record was soon broken, however, by Lukas Podolski who was capped 44 times at the age of 22. At the same age, Lothar Matth�us (the German all-time record holder with 150 caps) had only played 13 times for the German national team. To this day Germany have never lost a game when he has scored.

In the Euro 2008 (4 years ago) group stage he was sent off in Germany's second match of the tournament against Croatia, which ended in a 2-1 defeat. As in Germany's quest to win European Cup, he was again instrumental against Portugal by scoring the first goal in Germany's Euro 2008 (4 years ago) Quarter-final match against them. He also assisted goals by Miroslav Klose and Michael Ballack from free kicks. Germany ended up winning the match 3-2 to advance to the semi-finals. He also scored his country's first goal in the 3-2 semi-final victory against Turkey. He captained the German team in a friendly against the United Arab Emirates.