Gerald Asamoah

Hannover 96

Coming through the youth ranks of Hannover, Asamoah started his professional career with the club from Lower Saxony, scoring five goals in his debut season. He first came to prominence the following year, as he scored 19 goals in 33 games (including a decisive winner in the final match against Eintracht Braunschweig) to help Hannover reach the play-off for the promotion in 2. Bundesliga. Although Die Roten lost the first leg 2–0 against TeBe Berlin, in the second leg Asamoah netted the opener, as his side tied the aggregate and eventually gained promotion after the penalty shoot-outs. Adding his final season in Hannover, Asamoah played 79 games and scored 28 goals for the club.

Schalke 04

In the summer transfer window of 1999, Asamoah moved to Schalke 04 for a reported cost of €1.35 million. Despite having rarely hit double figures again during his prolonged time in Gelsenkirchen, the forward instantaneously became a favorite of supporters, thanks to his qualities both on and off the pitch, his good relationship with team-mates and coaches (especially Huub Stevens, who managed Asamoah for three years at Schalke) and his contributions to the club's successes during the first half of the 2000s.

With Die Knappen, the Ghanaian-German striker reached the qualification to the UEFA Champions League at the end of the 2000–01 season, before winning two consecutive German Cups (in 2001 and 2002), two UEFA Intertoto Cups (in 2003 and 2004) and a German…

In May 2001, Asamoah received his first senior call-up for the Germany national team by coach Rudi Völler and subsequently won his first international cap during a friendly match against Slovakia, making him the first African-born black player to ever play for the side: in fact, Erwin Kostedde and Jimmy Hartwig, two previous internationals with black ancestry, were both born in Germany to African-American fathers and German mothers. He also scored on his debut, at the 50th minute of the game. He then went on to play in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, mainly as a reserve, and ended up collecting a total amount of 43 international caps and six goals for the Germany national team.

Having previously served as a supervisor for the marketing area at Schalke while he was still playing for their reserve team, Asamoah was offered a role as an assistant coach for the Royal Blues' U-15 squad immediately after his retirement, in July 2015. In October of the same year, he obtained his UEFA A coaching licence. In November 2016, he was appointed as head coach of Schalke's U23 squad, a role he maintained until February 2021. Meanwhile, he served as the team manager for the senior team between March and June 2019, as he was temporarily promoted by interim head coach Huub Stevens. In February 2021, following internal turbulence within the club due to the extreme lack of results throughout the season, Asamoah was appointed as a coordinator for the first team, acting as a link between the players, the coaching team and the board. However, Schalke could not prevent themselves from being relegated for the first time in over thirty years, as they finished at the bottom of the league table. In May 2021, the new-established sporting director Rouven Schröder decided to appoint Asamoah as Schalke's first-team manager for the following season, in collaboration with head coach Dimitrios Grammozis.

Born in Mampong, Ghana, Asamoah and his family emigrated to Germany in 1990. He immediately started playing football in several local teams, and entered the youth academy of Hannover 96 at the age of 16.