Timo Hildebrand

Timo Hildebrand

Personal information
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Team information
Current team	Sporting CP
Youth career
1984–1995	FV Hofheim/Ried
1995–1999	Stuttgart
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1999–2007	Stuttgart	221	(0)
2007–2008	Valencia	26	(0)
2009–2010	Hoffenheim	38	(0)
2010-	Sporting	0	(0)
International career‡
1999–2001	Germany U-21	18	(0)
2004–	Germany	7	(0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 18 April 2010 ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 12:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Timo Hildebrand (born 5 April 1979) is a German professional football goalkeeper, who currently is a free agent after his contract with TSG 1899 Hoffenheim was not renewed in the summer of 2010. Hildrebrand signs for Sporting CP.

Hildebrand holds a Bundesliga record for keeping a clean sheet for 884 consecutive minutes in 2003–04.

Club career

VfB Stuttgart

After starting his career at the little known FV Hofheim/Ried, Hildebrand joined the Stuttgart youth team in 1994.

From the summer of 2000, he was the club's number one goalkeeper and contributed largely to Stuttgart's successes, particularly as part of what became known as "Stuttgart's young wild ones" team under coach Felix Magath who, due to financial restraints, had to rely on young players. Largely thanks to Hildebrand's steady performances, VfB Stuttgart managed to be Bundesliga runners-up in 2003 and survived the Champions League group stage the following season, before bowing out to Chelsea FC in the second round. Hildebrand also played a significant role in Stuttgart's victorious 2006–07 Bundesliga campaign, figuring as a backbone for the next generation of "wild ones" like Serdar Tasci or Mario Gomez and helping Stuttgart provide the third-best defence of the season. The 2006-07 campaign remains his greatest domestic success to this day, and his last season with Stuttgart as in December 2006 he didn't accept the club's offer to extend his contract.

Valencia

Hildebrand joined the Spanish club Valencia on a free transfer on 3 July 2007, with Valencia unveiling Hildebrand via a news conference the next day on 4 July 2007. He stated in the news conference that he would "give everything" to the club. Hildebrand was being viewed as a replacement to the club's long-serving goalkeeper Santiago Cañizares. He made his debut for Valencia on 29 August, for the third qualification round second leg of UEFA Champions League against IF Elfsborg. He played the full 90 minutes of that game.

Hildebrand was Valencia's first-choice goalkeeper for most part of the 2007-08 season, collecting a Copa del Rey trophy on the way. After Ronald Koeman's departure as Valencia manager, Hildebrand lost his place in the first team as Koeman's successor Unai Emery preferred newly signed Renan Brito instead. According to media coverage, he refused to take place on the bench and was eventually cut from the squad altogether. Hildebrand had not been playing for Valencia for several months since the Supercopa de España second leg on 24 August 2008. On 4 December 2008, he left Valencia by mutual consent.

Hoffenheim

On 10 December 2008, Hildebrand signed for the Bundesliga side 1899 Hoffenheim. He made his Bundesliga debut for Hoffenheim on 31 January 2009 in their 2-0 win at home to Energie Cottbus, being substituted in the 60th minute due to an injury.

In summer 2010 Hildebrand left Hoffenheim.

Sporting

Timo, signs a 2 years deal with portuguese crap Sporting CP.

International career

After collecting 18 Under-21-caps, Hildebrand made his full international debut for Germany on 28 April 2004 in a friendly against Romania in Bucharest as he came on to substitute Oliver Kahn after the first half and a 0-4 halftime score (Germany eventually lost 1-5).

Hildebrand participated in three consecutive tournaments for Germany, Euro 2004, 2005 Confederations Cup and World Cup 2006, as Germany's third-choice goalkeeper, playing his first competitive game for Germany at the 2005 Confederations Cup against Argentina (final score 2-2). After Kahn's retirement from international football in 2006, Hildebrand stepped up to become Germany's number 2 and was Jens Lehmann's natural replacement during the Euro 2008 qualification. Somewhat surprisingly, Joachim Löw dropped Hildebrand from the final squad for the tournament and picked Robert Enke and René Adler ahead of him. Although Löw stated that Hildebrand was an important player and may return to the set-up in near future, he has yet to appear for Germany since Euro 2008.

Career statistics

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1999–00||rowspan="8"|Stuttgart||rowspan="8"|Bundesliga||6||0||0||0||0||0||6||0 |- |2000–01||32||0||5||0||6||0||43||0 |- |2001–02||31||0||3||0||0||0||34||0 |- |2002–03||20||0||1||0||4||0||25||0 |- |2003–04||34||0||0||0||8||0||42||0 |- |2004–05||34||0||3||0||7||0||44||0 |- |2005–06||31||0||2||0||6||0||31||0 |- |2006–07||33||0||6||0||0||0||39||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2007–08||rowspan="2"|Valencia||rowspan="2"|La Liga||26||0||3||0||3||0||32||0 |- |2008–09||0||0||0||0||0||0||0||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2008–09||rowspan="2"|Hoffenheim||rowspan="2"|Bundesliga||10||0||0||0||0||0||10||0 |- |2009–10||28||0||0||0||0||0||28||0 Template:Football player statistics 3259||0||20||0||31||0||310||0 Template:Football player statistics 426||0||3||0||3||0||32||0 Template:Football player statistics 5285||0||23||0||34||0||342||0 |}

Honours

Germany

• 2006 FIFA World Cup Bronze medallist: 2006

• Confederations Cup Bronze medallist: 2005

VfB Stuttgart

• 2006–07 German Bundesliga
• DFB Pokal Runner-Up: 2006–07

Valencia CF

• Copa del Rey: 2007–08

External links

• Official website
• Career stats at Fussballdaten.de Template:De icon
• Profile at Transfermarkt.de Template:De icon
• Player stats at www.lfp.es Template:Es icon