Lukas Podolski

Lukas Josef Podolski (on 4 June 1985 in Gliwice, Poland) is a German footballer who plays as a striker/winger for 1. FC Köln and for the German national team. He joined 1. FC Köln in 1995 where he broke into the first team in 2003 and made 81 appearances for the club before moving to Bayern Munich. After three years in Munich with mixed success, Podolski returned to Köln. He was first capped by Germany in 2004 and has been part of the squad in all major tournaments since then. Although he was eligible to play for Germany and Poland, Podolski chose to play for Germany.After Podolski was assured by national team coach Joachim Löw that a return to 1. FC Köln would not harm his chances of international football, an agreement to sign him was agreed between Bayern Munich and Köln on 20 January 2009, although he would not return to Köln until the start of the summer transfer window. On 1 July, Podolski returned to Köln on a four-year contract, and the transfer is speculated to be around €10 million, equivalent to the fee Bayern paid to sign him in 2006.Köln created a website where people were able to buy pixels of an image of Lukas Podolski for €25 per 8x8 pixel square, in order to gather €1 million to reduce the cost of the transfer.Having just moved from Bayern Munich, Podolski had a poor first season at Köln, scoring just three times the entire season. One of his goals however, came from a free kick against his former club to salvage a draw.In the 2010–11 season, Podolski scored his 50th Bundesliga goal in the match against Hannover 96 in March 2011. During the complete season, Podolski scored thirteen goals and seven assists.In late 2003, after several impressive performances in his first few Bundesliga games, Polish media suggested then-Polish national team coach Paweł Janas to check Podolski out, as he was still eligible to play for Poland. Janas ignored the request stating in one of the press interviews that "as for today we have much better strikers in Poland and I don't see a reason to call up a player just because he played one or two good matches in the Bundesliga. He's not even a regular starter at his club." By that time Podolski was still interested in representing Poland, but as the season progressed more and more German media started to suggest to call up the striker to their national team. When his full potential was finally unveiled, he had already been persuaded to represent Germany. At the end of the season Köln were relegated, but Podolski impressed so much, that he celebrated his debut for Rudi Völler's Germany on 6 June 2004, at 19 years old, in Kaiserslautern against Hungary with a late substitute appearance. He had become the first second-division player since 1975 to break into the national team.