Klasnic, Ivan

Born in Hamburg in a family of Croatian - Bosnian guest workers . He started his career in small local clubs such as Union 03 and Stellingen . Klasnich’s first serious club was St. Pauli , in which he became famous for the matches of the Second Bundesliga . In St. Pauli, Klasnic made his debut at the age of 18 (in 1998) and played in this team for 4 years. The highest achievement was St. Pauli's entry to the Bundesliga in the 2000/01 season .

After the brilliant season at St. Pauli, several clubs in the Bundesliga became interested in Klasnic. The Bremer “ Werder Bremen ” proposal was the most specific, and in the summer of 2001, Klasnic, as a free agent, transferred to this club. In the first two seasons at Werder Bremen, Klasnic was in reserve, substituting players like Ailton , Nelson Valdes or Angelos Haristeas on the field. In the same period, he suffered two serious knee injuries. Only in the 2003/04 season did Klasnich begin to play at the level of his capabilities and, along with Ailton, was one of the best players in the team who won the championship and the German Cup . Klasnic with 13 goals was after Ailton the team's top scorer, also making 11 assists. After the season, he extended his contract with Werder Bremen.

Since the 2004/05 season, his partner in the Werder Bremen attack has been Miroslav Klose , next to whom Klasnic has even more opened up, and together they have made the Bundesliga’s most packed attacking duo. Klasnich scored 10 goals in matches of that championship, and 5 in the Champions League draw, 3 of which were scored in the match with the Belgian Anderlecht . Werder reached the 1/8 finals of the Champions League tournament, where he lost to Lyon . In the 2005/06 season , a pair of these forwards led Werder Bremen to the German vice championship. “Werder Bremen” scored 79 goals in 34 matches, of which more than half (40 goals) were scored by Klasnic (15 goals) and Klose (25 goals, Bundesliga's top scorer).

In the 2006/07 season , Ivan began to have health problems. In February 2007, he underwent a kidney transplant operation, which was unsuccessful, the body rejected his mother’s kidney . On the second attempt, in March 2007, a kidney transplant failed, this time the donor was Klasnic’s father ^[2] . After six months of treatment, in September 2007, doctors allowed him to train at full strength. Klasnic was able to fully recover by November 2007, when he, after an almost year-long break, again entered the field in the first team.

On July 8, 2008, Klasnic signed a four-year contract with the French Nantes , Ivan got the club free of charge, as Werder Bremen did not renew the old agreement with him. On the last day of the summer transfer window of 2009, Klasnic went on a one-year rental to the English Bolton Wanderers .

In 1998-1999, Klasnic held five matches for the youthful (under 19 years old) Croatian national team, in which he scored one goal, and in the spring of 2001 went on the field in three matches as part of the youth national team, scored also one goal. However, due to its origin, Klasnic could equally well have played for the main team of any other country than for the Croatian team. Rudy Völler offered him a place in the German national team , and Blazh Slishkovich invited him to the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina . In both cases, Klasnic refused and chose the Croatian national team , in which he made his debut on February 18, 2004 in a lost match with a score of 1: 2 against Germany.

He spent the first goal for the national team in a friendly match with the national team of Macedonia on April 28, 2004. Klasnic was included among other players in the national team for the 2004 European Championship , but spent the entire tournament on the bench. Before the 2006 World Cup final tournament , Klasnic scored a goal for the Argentine national team , the Croats then won with a score of 3: 2, and after that also scored 2 goals against the Austrian national team . The world championship, however, was not so successful for him. Klasnic participated in all three matches of his team, but could not score even once, and Croatia did not win a single match and was unable to leave his group. Due to serious health problems at the beginning of 2007, Klasnich was not called up to the national team for a whole year, and only on March 26, 2008 was able to enter the field again in its composition. In the summer of the same year, Klasnic participated in Euro 2008, marking two goals in two meetings. Ivan became the first ever transplanted kidney player to enter the field in the final match of the European Championship.

Werder

• Champion of Germany : 2003/04
• German Cup Winner: 2003/04
• German League Cup Winner: 2006

• Official site
• Statistics on the site fussballdaten.de