Bundesliga - Player Profile: Mario Gomez
Gomez is a German international footballer, who currently plays at Bayern Munich as a striker. Mario grew up in Unlingen, which is an Upper Swabian village. He is of German and Spanish decent as his mother is German but his father is from Granada in Spain. Despite having both the nationalities Mario opted to play for Germany on the international stage when he was just seventeen years old.
Gomez’s first professional football club was VFB Stuttgart, a Bundesliga football club. He made his debut for them came in a UEFA Champions League match against Chelsea on 9th of March 2004 but his first game in the Bundesliga for Stuttgart came on 8th of May 2004. In the 2004-20005 season, Mario scored fifteen times in twenty four games for VFB. In the 2005-2006 season, Gomez cemented his place in Stuttgart’s first team and played regularly throughout the season. He made thirty appearances in the Bundesliga and scored six times, the first of these six goals came on 17th of September, 2005.
He also played five times in the UEFA Cup, where he scored two twice. While three of his goals for the Bavarian giants came in the DFB Pokal tournament. The 2006-2007 season, turned out to be a brilliant one for Gomez. However, he did suffer his fair share of injuries in the above mentioned season, as he broke his hand on 10th of March 2007 and also tore a ligament in his knee. His come back on 12th May 2007, saw him resuming his terrific form as he scored against Vfl Bochum.
Stuttgart went onto win the match by three goals to two, and in doing so they also went two points clear at the top of the German football league table. On the final weekend of the Bundesliga season, Stuttgart played against Energie Cottbus, a game which they won comfortably. VFB also reached the final of the DFB Pokal Cup where they played against F.C Nuremberg. However, Stuttgart lost the final match of the tournament as Gomez failed to score. After the season ended, Gomez was named German footballer of the year for 2007 and also extended his contract with Stuttgart till 2012.
In the 2007-2008 season, the rest of his team failed to meet their previous standards which they reached during the 2006-2007 season. Despite the fact that the rest of his team was suffering from a lack of form, Gomez continued to hit the back of the net as he scored nineteen league goals in twenty games, in doing so he propelled himself to the second place in Bundesliga’s goal scoring charts. In the DFB Cup, the German striker again impressed and reached the number one spot in goal scoring charts as far as the Cup football was concerned.
Mario Gomez’s recent progress as a goal scoring striker earned him the nick name, Mr. Reliable. On 26th of May, 2009, Bayern Munich secured Mario’s signature and paid thirty five million Euros to VFB for his services. However ever since his arrival to Munich, he has failed to impress and has been criticized by many fans related to the club for missing simple goal scoring opportunities.
Mario also played in the 2010 FIFA World Cup but failed to score even a single goal for the German national side. He was seldom used by the national team manager Joachim Low, who preferred Miroslav Klose over the young Spanish born target man.
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