• Get to know... Hernandez

    An introduction to 21-year-old striker Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez... Where's he from? Hernandez currently plies his trade with Chivas de Guadalajara in Mexico's Primera Division. Chivas are the most successful team in Mexican history with 11 titles. Having been at the club since the age of nine, Javier scored within five minutes of making his first-team debut, in a 4-0 win over Necaxa in 2006, and helped his side win the title that season.

  • Chicha dreams of a double

    Chicharito admits his first season in England is panning out beyond his wildest dreams, after becoming a Premier League champion ahead of a Champions League final meeting with Barcelona.

  • Review 2010/2011: October

    Player of the month: Javier Hernandez - Four goals, including a stunning back-header Stat of the month: The draw against West Bromwich Albion was the only occasion all season that United dropped points in the league at Old Trafford. The Reds won 18 of 19 home league games.

  • Javier Hernandez Girl Friend's (Lety Sahagun)

    Lety is short for Leticia. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico to Lety Acevedo de Sahagun and Jaime Sahagun. She has three siblings Rodrigo, Jaime and Renata Sahagun. She studied at the Centro Escolar Los Altos in Zapopan, Guadalajara the school is known for its Opus Dei beliefs. After she graduated from high school she went to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon where she is studying Relaciones Internacionales which in English will be International Relations also known as International Studies at Monterrey Tec. You can check her pictures here.

  • Fans honour Hernandez

    Javier Hernandez has capped a phenomenal debut season for United by scooping the prestigious Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year Award. The accolade is voted for by fans across the world on the club’s official websites and honours United’s best player in the 2010/11 campaign.

Friday, June 22, 2012

42

Mario Gómez



Mario Gomez

  • Position: Forward
  • Age: 26
  • Birth Date: Jul 10, 1985
  • Birth Place: Germany
  • Height: 1.89m
  • Weight: 84 kg

Mario Gómez García (German pronunciation: [ˈmaːʁioː ˈɡɔmɛs]; born 10 July 1985) is a German footballer who plays as a striker for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga and the German national team. Gómez joined Bayern after six years in Stuttgart. The fee was a record for a player transferred in the Bundesliga, estimated to be €30–35 million. When Stuttgart became champions in 2006–07, Gómez contributed 14 goals and 7 assists at the age of 21 and was selected German footballer of the year.



Mario Gomez can not waste his opportunities in this championship for Germany to be successful.



Personal life

Gómez was born in Riedlingen. He was raised in nearby Unlingen, an Upper Swabian village in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany about 95 km south of Stuttgart and 175 km west of Munich. Gómez is of German-Spanish descent (his father, Pepe Gómez, is Spanish from Albuñán, Granada and his mother, Christel Roth, is German). He has both German and Spanish citizenship and decided to play for the German national team. His first appearance for the team was in February 2007 against Switzerland and he has been called up regularly since.

Gomez is notable as being outspoken about social matters. For example regarding homosexuality in football he has stated that he believes gay players should be open about their sexuality and thinks that "they would play as if they had been liberated". He also would like a "radical rethink" about homosexuality in football.
Gómez is currently in a long-term relationship with his girlfriend, Silvia Meichel.


Scoring 80 goals in all competitions over the last two seasons for a massive club like Bayern Munich is good enough to guarantee a player a start for his national side. Well, it's a guarantee unless your name is Mario Gomez.

 No matter how good of form Gomez has been in for his club throughout his career, he's never been able to fully translate that over to the national side. It's easy to say Gomez just hasn't risen to the occasion when wearing the colors of Germany. Mario was part of the Germany team in Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010, but he failed to find the net in either competition. In fact, his ineptitude in front of goal in Austria/Switzerland was widely lampooned by the world media.

 Stats are misleading in the case of Gomez. He has scored 22 times for his country in 52 appearances, and a closer look at those goals show that 8 of those goals came in qualifiers for Euro 2008 and Euro 2012. (Gomez didn't score in qualifiers leading up to World Cup 2010.) However, those goals came against world "powers" San Marino, Kazakhstan, Austria, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Belgium. The strongest competition he's scored against came in friendlies against Uruguay and Australia.

Joachim Löw abandoned the 4-4-2 for a 4-2-3-1 after the group stages of Euro 2008. Gomez's poor performance in front of the net accelerated this move. He was benched while Miroslav Klose retained his starting position. It's tough to argue Löw for favoring Klose over Gomez. Club form has never mattered in the case of Klose. Rudi Völler, Jürgen Klinsmann, and now Löw have stuck by him for one simple reason: He scores big goals in big games for Germany. He definitely hasn't failed to score in major tournaments. With 25 goals in qualifying and 16 goals in those tournaments, you can easily see why Klose is favored.

The general (and correct) consensus is that Gomez is a confidence-dependent striker. There is no doubt that when he gets going, he's absolutely tough to stop. As I said in the first sentence of this piece, Mario has scored 80 goals for Bayern over the last two seasons. If your name is not Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, that number is astronomical. One must also take into consideration to sheer volume of opportunities that Gomez gets to score in a Bayern shirt. Without exact figures in front of me, I will make the assumption that he sees roughly about one billion chances. It normally takes Gomez a couple of chances to get going, but when he does, he can score with the best.


 As long as Klose remains healthy, Gomez will likely be starting the tournament from the bench. It will be important for him (and Germany) that he capitalize on the chances that he receives during his opportunities on the pitch. If he's wasteful like he was in 2008, you can be sure that Löw will try his other options. Gome and Klose are the only forwards that are being brought to Poland/Ukraine, but Löw has let it be known that he will be willing to put Marco Reus and/or Andre Schürrle up top to find goals. While Germany does have a potential weakness in defense, the forward position should not be an issue. The service will be there when Gomez sees the field. Thomas Müller, Mesut Özil, and Lukas Podolski are as talented an attacking trio that you'll find.

 Germany has twenty one victories and one loss when Mario Gomez scores a goal. For Germany to reach their goal of winning the 2012 European Championship, Gomez is going to have score goals. They won't be able to rely on a 34 year old Miroslav Klose to carry them through another tournament. Mario Gomez National Team: Germany Club: Bayern Munich Age: 26 Position: Forward Role On Team: Second choice striker in Germany's 4-2-3-1

Club career

VfB Stuttgart

Gómez celebrates winning the Bundesliga with VfB Stuttgart in 2007
In 2004, Gómez played 10 minutes for VfB Stuttgart in the Champions League in a game against Chelsea on 9 March and made his debut in the Bundesliga (national league) on 8 May.

In the 2004–05 season, playing for VfB Stuttgart's team in the Regionalliga Süd (Regional League South, then part of the third tier of German football after the national team and the Bundesliga), he scored 15 times in 24 games and was to be capped eight times in the first team.

In the 2005–06 season, Gómez joined the first team permanently. He played 30 times in the Bundesliga, scoring six times at this level, his first goal coming on 17 September 2005. The striker also played five times in the UEFA Cup, scoring twice, and in three times in the DFB-Pokal.

In the 2006–07 season the youngster established himself as one of the top scorers in the Bundesliga. However, he broke his hand on 10 March 2007 and suffered a torn ligament in his left knee. He made his comeback on 12 May 2007, and immediately scored after coming on from the bench. In that game, VfB Stuttgart defeated VfL Bochum (3–2) and went two points clear heading into the Bundesliga's final weekend where they won at home against Energie Cottbus, thus becoming German champions. Furthermore, VfB Stuttgart also reached final of the DFB-Pokal, where Gómez participated, but VfB Stuttgart lost to 1. FC Nuremberg. After the season, he was named German Footballer of the Year for 2007. Gómez extended his contract at VfB Stuttgart until 2012.

While, in the 2007–08 season, the rest of his team struggled to keep performing at their 2006–07 season standards, Gómez remained at an astonishingly high level, scoring 19 goals in 25 appearances, second in the Bundesliga's Top Scorer list, just behind Bayern Munich's Luca Toni who scored 24 times. In the cup Gómez was even the top scorer with six goals. Because of his development, many big clubs became interested in the then 23 year old forward. Gómez gained the nickname "Mr. Zuverlässig" ("Mr. Reliable"), as seen in his second of three goals against Bundesliga rival Werder Bremen (final score 6–3), where he managed to net in a virtually unreachable pass by teammate Yıldıray Baştürk. In the 2008–09 season Gómez hit four goals to inspire VfB Stuttgart to a 4–1 victory over Bundesliga leaders VfL Wolfsburg.

FC Bayern Munich





2009–10 season

On 26 May 2009, Gómez was eventually transferred to Bayern Munich on a Bundesliga record transfer fee, signing a four-year contract. The amount of the transfer fee varies from 30–35 million euro, depending on different sources. Gómez was not scoring like his usual self in his first season for Bayern with just 10 goals but in the cup he was more prolific with 3 goals in just four games, unfortunately Gómez was short of assists as well as goals. Quite surprisingly he made an impact as he was to start the majority of games next season for Bayern. Also in his first season Gómez was teamed up with his international strike partner Miroslav Klose to give him some first team experience.

2010–11 season

After an erratic first season at Bayern with 10 goals in 29 league appearances, Gómez established himself as a starter during the 2010–11 season (to an extent at the expense of Miroslav Klose and due to the injury sustained by Ivica Olić) and finished as top goalscorer in the Bundesliga with 28 goals. He scored his 100th Bundesliga goal with his third strike in a 1–8 away victory over FC St. Pauli on 7 May 2011, the hat-trick already being his fifth in the Bundesliga in the 2010–11 season, and his sixth overall, adding in his hat-trick against Cluj in the Champions League. Gómez has scored 13 hat-tricks in his Bundesliga career, three with Stuttgart and ten with Bayern. Gómez also netted eight times in the Champions League and finished in second place in this season's top scorers, tied with Samuel Eto'o, although Bayern were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Internazionale. Gómez overall in all competitions scored 39 goals.

2011–12 season

Gómez after Bayern Munich's defeat against Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League Final
Gómez started the 2011–12 season in similar style towards the previous season and he opened his league account on 20 August 2011 in Bayern's thrashing of Hamburger SV. Seven days later Gómez scored a hat-trick away to 1. FC Kaiserslautern. On 10 September, Gómez then netted four goals in Bayern Munich's 7–0 rout of Freiburg, sealing four straight wins for the Bavarians and a return to the top of the Bundesliga table. On 27 September, the striker netted two first half goals as Bayern defeated Manchester City 2–0 in the group stages of the Champions League, a game infamously remembered for which City striker Carlos Tevez reportedly refused to play.

Gómez scored his second brace of the Bundesliga campaign against Hertha BSC when Bayern won 4–0. Gómez then got another brace on 29 October when Bayern then defeated 1. FC Nuremberg 4–0. Then on 11 December 2011, he scored his third brace of the season and sealed Bayern's 2–1 win over southern rivals Stuttgart. On 2 November 2011, he netted a hat-trick in a Champions League group stage game against Serie A club S.S.C. Napoli. Bayern went on to win 3–2. In the DFB-Pokal Gómez scored just two goals. On 16 December 2011, Gómez scored his 50th goal for the calendar year of 2011 against 1. FC Köln.

On 13 March 2012, the second leg of their Champions League tie against FC Basel; the match saw the Bavarians overturn their 1–0 away loss as Gómez netted four of Bayern's seven goals, firing the Bavarians through to the quarter-finals 7–1 on aggregate. In the quarter-finals, Bayern faced Ligue 1 side Marseille and in the first-leg on 28 March, Gómez fired in his 11th Champions League goal of the campaign in a 2–0 win for the Bavarians.

On 4 April, Gómez signed a new contract with Bayern Munich, keeping him at the club until the summer of 2016. Gómez scored the winning goal in Bayern's 2–1 victory over Real Madrid in the first leg of their semi-final clash, Bayern went on to win the tie 3–1 on penalties after the teams were deadlocked 3–3 on aggregate.

International career


Euro 2008




Gómez has both German and Spanish citizenship, but played for all German youth national teams from age 17. He made his debut for the German national team against Switzerland on 7 February 2007. Germany won the match 3–1, with Gómez scoring Germany's second goal. Gómez gained his second cap for Germany, coming on as a substitute for Kevin Kurányi in a Euro 2008 qualifier against San Marino, scoring two goals that contributed to a final 6–0 victory.

After Gómez impressed in pre-tournament friendlies, Joachim Löw called him up to the German squad for Euro 2008. Löw broke up the strike partnership of Lukas Podolski and Miroslav Klose with Podolski moving out to the left wing at the expense of talismanic midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger and Gómez partnering Klose up front. Unfortunately, he was not able to reproduce his club form and missed several clear-cut chances including a crucial one in the last group match against Austria. Germany eventually won courtesy of a Michael Ballack free kick to seal a place in the knock-out stages but Löw dropped Gómez to the bench and reverted back to the Podolski-Klose partnership. He was an unused substitute in the quarterfinal and semifinal and later came off the bench in the final of Euro 2008 for Miroslav Klose but could not prevent Germany from losing 1–0 to Spain.

World Cup 2010

In a friendly match against the United Arab Emirates played on 2 June 2009, Gómez netted four goals, ending his 15-game goal drought for the national team,[23] in Germany's 7–2 thrashing.
Gómez was named as one of the six strikers in Joachim Löw's 23-man squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He featured in four out of seven German matches at the World Cup, all from the substitutes bench against Australia, replacing Mesut Özil in the 73rd minute, Serbia, coming on for left back Holger Badstuber in the 77th minute, England, coming on for fellow forward Miroslav Klose in the 72nd minute and Spain replacing defensive midfielder Sami Khedira on 80 minutes. Again he did not score a goal at a major tournament.

Euro 2012

Although being the second choice behind Miroslav Klose as center-forward during Germany's qualification for Euro 2012, Gómez played regularly and contributed goals against every opponent of that campaign: Kazakhstan, Austria, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Belgium. This includes two goals against Austria in Germany's 2–1 away win in the Ernst-Happel-Stadion, netting into the very same goal in which despite good goalscoring opportunities he couldn't score three years earlier during Euro 2008, a performance for which he was criticized by the German media and fans of the Mannschaft. Observers saw him overcome a little trauma and in a spontaneous gesture of relief, he kissed the goalpost after he scored the first goal.

Prior to the Euro 2012 in a 3–3 draw against Ukraine in the opening game at the renovated Olympic Stadion of Kiev – the site of the Euro 2012 final match – Gómez captained Germany for the first time. It was his 50th international cap, and aged 26, he was Germany's oldest player in the starting lineup.

Gómez scored the only, and winning, goal against Portugal in their Euro 2012 starting match in Poland-Ukraine.[26] He then scored twice against the Netherlands in Germany's second group B match, making it three goals in two games.

Style of play


Gómez can shoot with both feet, and is considered to be an aerial threat. His best ability however remains as his anticipation to crosses and passes and finish them. Arsène Wenger described him as "a great finisher who is often in the right place to finish off moves." Moreover, his body balance and ability to hold up the ball often creates trouble for defenders. During his time at Bayern, his ability to appear "at the right place at the right time" proved to be one of Bayern's most lethal attacking weapons as Ribéry and Robben can often out-run defenders and provide a cross for Gómez.

Honours

Club

VfB Stuttgart
·         Bundesliga: 2006–07
·         Bayern Munich
·         Bundesliga: 2009–10
·         DFB-Pokal: 2009–10
·         DFL-Supercup: 2010
·         UEFA Champions League Runner-up: 2009–10, 2011–12
National team
Germany
FIFA World Cup 2010: Third place – Bronze medal
UEFA European Football Championship Runner-up: 2008
[edit]Individual
Bundesliga Top Goalscorer (28 goals): 2011
German Footballer of the Year: 2007
Most expensive Bundesliga transfer



2012/13 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
GermanyEC3031947000
GermanyInt1110321000
Season Totals41411268000
2011/12 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
Bayern MunichGer Cup41211489210
Bayern MunichBund30326310156451820
GermanyInt5030631100
Bayern MunichUCL111120432116600
GermanyECQ41511371300
Season Totals54648517795723030
2010/11 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
GermanyECQ0110000000
Bayern MunichUCL6281221215720
GermanyInt2320732200
Bayern MunichBund2752829548342420
GermanyWC0400201100
Bayern MunichGer Cup4131954000
Season Totals391642413568563440
2009/10 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
Bayern MunichGer Cup31311056400
Bayern MunichBund2181036925342010
GermanyInt4150710100
Bayern MunichUCL48111566700
GermanyWCQ3100520200
Season Totals351919510639463410
2008/09 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
GermanyEC3100613100
GermanyWCQ24021442400
GermanyECQ33201242700
GermanyInt3120001200
VfB StuttgartUEFA8062191012710
VfB StuttgartBund30224612146494940
VfB StuttgartGer Cup20311242600
Season Totals5111371118469717650
2007/08 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
VfB StuttgartUCL40301567400
GermanyInt1010000000
VfB StuttgartBund2321937437394310
Season Totals2822338943464710
2006/07 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
VfB StuttgartBund223145601846020
VfB StuttgartGer Cup2210000010
Season Totals245155601846030
2005/06 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
VfB StuttgartUEFA1420000000
VfB StuttgartBund62170000020
Season Totals72590000020
2004/05 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
VfB StuttgartBund0800000000
VfB StuttgartUEFA0100000000
Season Totals0900000000
2003/04 STATISTICS
TEAMCompetitionGSSBGASHSGFCFSYCRC
VfB StuttgartUCL0100000000