Ulf Kirsten

Dynamo Dresden

Kirsten began playing football for local team BSG Chemie Riesa in 1972. He joined BSG Stahl Riesa in 1978 before joining the youth academy of Dynamo Dresden in 1979. Dynamo Dresden was a center of excellence (German: Leistungszentrum) and the most prominent club in Bezirk Dresden. It was also the most successful club in East Germany at the time. Kirsten made his professional debut for Dynamo Dresden in the 1983–84 DDR-Oberliga season. Kirsten played 154 matches and scored 57 goals for Dynamo Dresden in the DDR-Oberliga. He won the DDR-Oberliga with Dynamo Dresden in two consecutive seasons: 1988–88 and 1989–90. Kirsten became the Footballer of the Year in East Germany in 1990. Kirsten had an unusual build: measuring only 172 cm (5 ft 8 in), but weighing 81 kg (179 lb). He therefore had an unusually low centre of gravity, which enabled him to protect the ball in the box against much bigger defenders and turn around quickly for close-range shots. His playing style was often compared to that of Gerd Müller. In addition, despite his small height, Kirsten was also a feared header.

Bayer Leverkusen

Kirsten was one of the first East German men's footballers to enter the Bundesliga after the German reunification. In the German Bundesliga he played 350 matches for Bayer 04 Leverkusen and scored 182 goals (ranked #7 in the Bundesliga all-time top scorer list). He established himself as one of the most dangerous strikers in the Bundesliga, but Bayer…

Kirsten's 100 caps are almost evenly split: 49 for East Germany and 51 for the re-unified Germany in a career which spanned 15 years from 1985 until 2000, with the reunified team being formed in late 1990. Kirsten scored a total of 34 international goals, 14 of them for East Germany. His only major tournaments came late in his career; Kirsten played for his country at the 1994 and 1998 World Cups and Euro 2000.

Club

International

Ulf Kirsten's team's score listed first, score column indicates score after each Ulf Kirsten goal.

Kirsten's son Benjamin is also a footballer and has played as a goalkeeper for Dynamo Dresden and NEC Nijmegen. Along with several other teammates, Kirsten was allegedly implicated as an Stasi Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (informant) under the codename "Knut Krüger" during his time at Dynamo Dresden through files recovered from the security service's archives after the fall of East Germany. Nicknamed "Der Schwatte" by fans due to his southern European appearance and his swarthy hair, he and his son created a gin tonic brand with the same name in 2020. The term "schwatt" is a dialect expression in the Ruhr area and Rhineland for the colour black.