Georg Koch

Football manager infobox
playername = Georg Koch


fullname = Georg Koch
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1972|02|3
cityofbirth = Bergisch Gladbach
countryofbirth = Germany
height = height|m=1.93
currentclub = Rapid Wien
clubnumber = 25
position = Goalkeeper
youthyears =
youthclubs =
years = 1990-1991
1992-1997
1997
1997-2000
2000-2003
2003
2003-2004
2004-2007
2007-2008
2008-
clubs = Erkenschwick
Fortuna Düsseldorf
PSV Eindhoven
Arminia Bielefeld
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern II
Energie Cottbus
Duisburg
Dinamo Zagreb
Rapid Wien
caps(goals) =
102
003
072
085
003
026
093
025
007
pcupdate = 24 August 2008

Georg Koch (born February 3, 1972) is a German association football goalkeeper. He was born in Bergisch Gladbach.

He started his career playing at amateur club SpVgg Erkenschwick before becoming a professional by moving to Bundesliga side Fortuna Düsseldorf in January 1992. However, he was only understudy to Jörg Schmadtke and did not make any Bundesliga appearances before the club was relegated to the Second Bundesliga with a 20th-place finish. He continued to play for Fortuna Düsseldorf in the following five years and became their first-choice goalkeeper by the time they returned to the first division, making his Bundesliga debut on August 11, 1995 in the club's first league match of the 1995-96 season, away against Werder Bremen. He went on to appear for Fortuna Düsseldorf in all of their 34 Bundesliga matches that season and played another 22 league matches for the club in the following season. In June 1997, shortly after Fortuna Düsseldorf was relegated to the Second Bundesliga with a 16th-place finish at the end of the 1996-97 season, he left the club for PSV Eindhoven.

He spent only three months with the Dutch club and returned to Germany in October 1997 by signing with Arminia Bielefeld, subsequently spending two and half seasons with the club. He collected 22 Bundesliga appearances before the club was relegated to the Second Bundesliga with an 18th-place finish at the end of the 1997-98 season and went on to appear in all of their 34 Second Bundesliga matches in the 1998-99 season as well as in another 16 Bundesliga matches after the club was promoted back to the first division for the 1999-2000 season. During the winter break of the season, he left Bielefeld for 1. FC Kaiserslautern and became the club's first-choice goalkeeper in March 2000, after spending six matches on the bench as understudy to Uwe Gospodarek. He went on to make nine Bundesliga appearances throughout the final eleven matchdays of the season and became the club's first-choice goalkeeper in the following two seasons, but lost his position to the young Tim Wiese in early 2003 and left the club upon the end of the 2002-03 season. He appeared in a total of 85 Bundesliga matches in three and half seasons of playing for Kaiserslautern. In August 2003, Koch signed with Energie Cottbus, which competed in the Second Bundesliga at the time, and subsequently made 26 appearances for the club in the league before moving to MSV Duisburg in June 2004 and signing a five-year contract with the club, until June 2009.

He made 67 out of possible 68 league appearances in his first two seasons with the Zebras, missing only one Second Bundesliga match in the 2004-05 season as he was suspended for it after collecting five yellow cards. The club was promoted to the Bundesliga for the 2005-06 season, but was relegated back to the Second Bundesliga with an 18th-place finish. In the 2006-07 season, he was part of the Duisburg team that managed renewed promotion to the top flight, making 26 appearances in the Second Bundesliga.

He untimely cancelled his contract with Duisburg in late June 2007 and went to join Croatian first-division side Dinamo Zagreb on a free transfer in early July, signing a two-year contract. He made his competitive debut for Dinamo Zagreb on 17 July 2007 in their first UEFA Champions League qualifier against Azerbaijani side Khazar Lenkoran on the road, which ended in a 1-1 draw.

Despite the fact that he only spent one season with Dinamo, he received large amounts of praise from the fans due to his incredible charisma after only a few months of playing for the club, with many of them seeing him as the future captain. However, Dinamo decided to re-sign their former goalkeeper Tomislav Butina for the 2008-09 season and Koch was eventually sold to Rapid Wien in July 2008.

At Rapid, Koch started the season as the first-choice goalkeeper, deputising for the injured Helge Payer. However, in the derby against Austria Wien on 24 August 2008, he was severely injured after a firecracker, thrown from the stand with the travelling Austria supporters behind his goal, exploded in his proximity. Koch had to be substituted and it was later reported that he had suffered hearing trauma and circulatory shock. [cite news
title = Koch schwer verletzt, Chelsea verteidigt Tabellenführung
url = http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,574079,00.html
publisher = Spiegel Online
language = German
date = 24 August 2008] Koch has not been playing ever since. In late September 2008, he was quoted saying in an Austrian newspaper that he is still experiencing problems with his equilibrioception as a result of the incident. [cite news
title = Kochs Karriere weiter auf der Kippe
url = http://de.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=893159.html
publisher = FIFA
language = German
date = 30 September 2008]

References

External links

* [http://www.weltfussball.de/spieler_profil/georg-koch/ Weltfussball.de profile] de icon
* [http://www.hnl-statistika.com/p1.asp?ID=1280 Georg Koch profile] at Nogometni Magazin hr icon