Stefan Kissling is a famous German footballer who defends the colors of Leverkusen Bayer. He was born in 1984, and he started playing football at the age of 4 when he went to the Bamberg Sports Academy.
"Nuremberg"
In 2001, Stefan Kissling became a Nuremberg footballer. As part of the new club for several years, the German could not break into the main team, so he was forced to speak in a youth team.
Great performances did not go unnoticed. In 2004, Stefan became a full-fledged player in the core team of Nuremberg. For the 2004/05 season in the Bundesliga, the forward played 27 matches and scored 3 goals.
A year later, Kissling improved his performance. In 27 matches of the German championship, young Stefan scored 10 goals, which attracted the attention of the coaching staff of one of the leaders of German football. This team was the Leverkusen Bayer.
Bayer (2006-2008)
In 2006, the "pharmacists" bought the German contract. Until 2009, Kissling’s performance was lame. In the 2006/07 season he scored ten accurate hits, a year later the German was able to hit the gates of rivals 7 times. In the 2007/08 season Kissling scored 9 goals in the national championship and 6 in the Champions League. A year later, Stefan scored 8 goals in the Bundesliga.
In 2008, Bayer striker played 3 games in the country's Cup, in which he scored 1 goal. Thus, in the first 3 years in the Leverkusen club, Stefan Kissling became the author of 31 goals in all tournaments. But the main achievements were yet to come.
Bayer (2009-2017)
In the 2009/10 season Stefan first made specialists talk about himself. In 30 matches of the Bundesliga, he managed to distinguish himself 20 times. However, the next season already made many forget about the striker, as his performance decreased significantly - 7 goals in 20 matches of the Bundesliga, not a single exact hit in 6 matches within the Champions League.
The goal drought did not last long, fortunately for the football player and his many fans. In the 2011/12 season Kissling scored sixteen times in the national championship. Despite the fact that the striker was able to regain confidence, he began to score goals in the domestic championship again, in the Champions League, the goals of the scorer did not stick together. In eight meetings that Bayer played in the most prestigious club tournament in Europe, the striker could not distinguish himself even once.
2012/13 season became a key in Kissling's career. Stefan's statistics in the Bundesliga were impressive. He scored 25 goals in 34 matches of the Championship of the country, the German sent another goal against his opponents in the Champions League and the German Cup. Many European grandees wanted to get a striker, but the player decided to stay in Bayer.
The next season has become less productive for the player. In the Champions League, the Leverkusen club goalkeeper scored twice as in the national cup. Most of his goals (15) Stefan scored in the Bundesliga. And during this season, the European grandees tried to acquire a football player. A photo of Stefan Kissling could be seen on the pages of authoritative football tabloids in England, Spain, Italy and France, but the player still decided to stay in the German Bayer.
Years later, the football player himself began to doubt the correctness of his decision. In the next 3 seasons, he significantly decreased in terms of performance. Kissling was able to score only 31 goals in more than 100 matches for the club in all tournaments.
In the summer of 2017, Stefan was injured, because of which he missed pre-season training, after which he announced that in 2018 he would end his career. In the Bundesliga 2017/18 season. the striker never came out at the start. On his account only two appearances on the field from the bench and 21 minutes played.
Achievements
During his career as a football player, Stefan Kissling took part in 379 matches of the Bundesliga, 70 matches of the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, and also played 20 games as part of the German Cup. In these matches, the striker scored 161 goals, 138 of which were in the German championship.
In 2006, Stefan played 3 games at the Youth European Championship. An excellent performance in the 2009/10 season was the reason for Kissling's invitation to the German national team at the 2010 World Cup, which was held in South Africa. At the World Cup, the German played only two games, did not differ in productive actions, but at the end of the tournament he was able to leave South Africa with a bronze medal.
Stefan Kissling has only one personal reward. This is the title of the best scorer of the German Bundesliga in the 2012/13 season, when the forward of the Leverkusen Bayer scored twenty-five goals.