Career
A striker, Jancker is physically very large for a footballer, standing at 1.93 meters (6 ft 4.0 in). His height and strength have proved to be an advantage when playing as a target man, as displayed during his most successful days at FC Bayern Munich. Jancker was known for being an unusual center striker, being weak in the air despite his huge frame, but showing a surprising control of the ball, especially featuring a polished back-to-the-goal game, and a touch for scoring with his hard right-footed shot – always doing the most intelligent and simple things on the field.
Jancker started his career as a trainee at Hansa Rostock before making his Bundesliga debut in 1993 with 1. FC Köln. At the age of 21, he was transferred to Rapid Vienna, scoring fourteen goals including seven in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup to finish as the tournament's top scorer. Thanks to this impressive performance, Jancker spent only one season with the Austrian club before being brought back to Germany to play for FC Bayern Munich.
Jancker's time at Bayern between 1996 and 2002 was the best period of his career, a spell which included four Bundesliga titles and victory in the 2001 UEFA Champions League. At Bayern, Jancker was partnered with the Brazilian inside-forward Giovane Élber, often rated as one of the Bundesliga's best attacking players.
Jancker left Bayern for Italian side Udinese in 2002, but the move was not a success; over two seasons and 35 games, the forward registered only two goals. Jancker was said to be "too slow and predictable for Serie A" by one football website. In 2004, Jancker returned to Germany with Kaiserslautern and showed a slight improvement in form, netting five times in 25 games. In 2004, he also scored six goals in Kaiserslautern's 15–0 first round DFB-Pokal win against FC Schönberg 95, still a record for any player in the competition. This was an improvement over his own previous joint record of five, which he had scored for Bayern Munich against DJK Waldberg in the latter's 16–1 first round cup defeat in 1997. Following the relegation of Kaiserslautern in May 2006, Jancker signed for Chinese team Shanghai Shenhua.
After poor performances, he was dropped in October, and agreed to join SV Mattersburg in the winter transfer window. In June 2009 it was announced that Mattersburg did not want to work with Jancker any further because of his physical condition. In February 2010, he announced his retirement at the end of the current season.
Read more about this topic: Carsten Jancker
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