Quantcast
View from the Kop

Whatever happened to Markus Babbel?

|

Markus Babbel started his illustrious career at hometown club Bayern Munich where he worked his way up through the youth ranks and eventually broke into the first-team, making 12 appearances.

After struggling to hold down a first-team birth, the right-back moved to German rivals Hamburg where he flourished as a marauding full-back and a solid defender.

It was his impressive performances for Hamburg that forced Bayern Munich to negotiate a transfer for Babbel which meant that the German would move back to the capital. One hundred and seventy appearances later, after some eye-catching performances at Euro 96, Markus Babbel was rated highly around Europe. Only last minute problems prevented the full-back from making a £5m move to Manchester United.

Babbel finally got his move to England in June 2000 when Gerard Houllier brought him to Liverpool just in time for the defender to play his part in a treble winning season for the Reds.

However, in the summer of 2001 Babbel contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome, an illness which made the German wheelchair bound and the defender was unable to participate for Liverpool for a whole year.

After returning from his life-threatening illness, Babbel went on loan to Blackburn Rovers where he turned out 25 times for the Lancashire outfit before returning to Germany to play for Stuttgart for the final three years of his career.

Babbel retired in 2007 and became Stuttgart’s assistant manager for 12 months until he was offered the manager’s job. After 13 months as Stuttgart boss Babbel parted ways with the club and is currently in charge of Hertha Berlin in Germany’s second division, a league in which, under the guidance of Babbel, Hertha Berlin top.

The article was written by Elliott Tunstall for Clean Sheets All Around. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at their site – ed.

Follow us on twitter @live4Liverpool or like us on Facebook

Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com

Its live fantasy football! Become part of Liverpool v West Ham and play Picklive for FREE. A Free Trial for every reader here


INTRODUCING WINDOWS PHONE 7! . . .

Share this article

3 comments

  • Damo says:

    ‘After struggling to hold down a first-team birth’?
    He really was multi-talented then! Or did you mean berth?

  • Markus says:

    Boy oh boy … everybody can find this on Wikipedia … and those who do may even know whats the German capital … and that Babbel was loaned out to Hamburg and not transfered back to Munich.

  • Robert Thomas says:

    played some great football with Liverpool in our Treble winning season

Comments are closed.