Marcel Schmelzer Biography
Marcel Schmelzer is one of the key players on the German national team—not because he scores a lot of goals, but he plays as left back. This is currently the position where most of big soccer teams have problems, since good left backs are hard to find. That is what makes him one of Germany's hopes for the future.
Childhood
Photo used with permission
Marcel Schmelzer was born on January 22nd, 1988 in Magdeburg, Germany. He is the son of Carmen and Andreas Schmelzer and is one of the most famous people to come from Magdeburg.
He began his career by playing 6 years for Fortuna Magdeburg before moving to city rival 1. FC Magdeburg in 2002. He spent 3 good years there before moving to a German Bundesliga club, Borussia Dortmund.
Borussia Dortmund
Schmelzer played for the U19 team first. He was signed to play on the left wing, but due to staff shortage he started playing the left back position.
He made his senior debut on August 9th, 2008 in a German Cup game against Essen and his Bundesliga debut 7 days later against Bayer Leverkusen.
In the following season 2009/2010 he finally got his spot in the starting 11 since fan-favorite starting left back, Dede, got injured and struggled with his form later.
Schmelzer was able to celebrate his first title after the 2010/2011 season when Dortmund won the German national championship. He did not miss a minute of the season and was a key player to Dortmund's success.
He scored his first goal in the Bundesliga on October 22nd, 2011 against 1. FC Köln and won the national championship with Dortmund again.
Germany
Photo used with permission
Schmelzer never really played for the German youth teams since he spent most of his youth time playing for smaller clubs.
He made his debut for Germany's U21 team on March 31st, 2009 in a friendly game. He surprisingly played as attacking midfielder. He also won the U21 European championship in 2009 in Sweden.
His senior debut was on November 17th, 2010 against Sweden. He did not play the European Championship in 2012, though, because national team coach Joachim Löw wanted captain Philipp Lahm to play the left back position. Since Lahm played every minute of the tournament, Schmelzer did not play at all.
His situation changed after the tournament when Löw said he wanted Philipp Lahm to play on the right back position again. Since then Schmelzer has remained in his spot as starting left back and is well on the way to playing the 2014 FIFA world cup.
