Jens Lehmann Biography
Jens Lehmann (born November 10, 1969 in Essen) is a German football goalkeeper who currently plays for Arsenal. Lehmann started his career in 1989 with Schalke 04, playing for them for nearly a decade. He was the Ruhr Valley club's hero in their 1997 UEFA Cup final victory over Internazionale, saving an Ivan Zamorano penalty in a penalty shootout.
He left Schalke for A.C. Milan in 1998, but did not play well and was dropped after just five matches. He returned to Germany to play for Borussia Dortmund, winning the Bundesliga in 2001-2002. A fiery personality with a poor disciplinary record, he holds the Bundesliga record for the number of sendings-off for a goalkeeper (five). Lehmann joined Arsenal on July 25, 2003, and in his first season at the club, played every match as Arsenal won the FA Premier League without a single loss.
Lehmann has a confident, aggressive style of play, often coming out of his goal to intercept passes; however this has led to some costly high-profile mistakes when playing for Arsenal, such as their 2004 UEFA Champions League quarter-final loss to Chelsea. By the middle of the 2004-05 season, Lehmann was no longer automatic first-choice, with the Spaniard Manuel Almunia being selected for some matches instead. However, Almunia then began to make numerous mistakes himself, allowing Lehmann to regain his position. At the end of that season, Lehmann produced a man-of-the-match performance against Manchester United in the 2005 FA Cup final, making numerous saves to keep the score 0-0 after extra time, and then crucially saving Paul Scholes' shot in the penalty shootout, which Arsenal won 5-4.
Lehmann has had an outstanding 2005-06 season so far with Arsenal, making his 100th Premier League appearance for the club in their game against West Bromwich Albion on April 15, 2006. He has been a key factor in his side's first-ever accession to the Champions League final; during their run Arsenal broke the record for the most consecutive clean sheets in the Champions League, with ten as of April 25, 2006. Lehmann has played in seven of those matches, and has broken Edwin van der Sar's individual goalkeeping record in the competition; he currently has played for 658 minutes without conceding a goal. Arsenal's tenth clean sheet was earned in the semi-finals against Villarreal, after Lehmann saved an 89th minute Juan Román Riquelme penalty.
International career
Lehmann made his debut for the national team against Oman in February 1998 and has since earned 29 caps for his country, most of which were friendlies. He has a well-publicised rivalry with Bayern Munich goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, whose presence has long prevented Lehmann from becoming the number one goalkeeper of the German national team. On April 7, 2006, however, German national coach Jürgen Klinsmann announced that Lehmann would be Germany's first-choice goalkeeper for the upcoming World Cup.
With thanks to Wikipedia.org