Mathias Abel (born 22 June 1981) is a German retired

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a defender.

Football career

Abel was born in Kaiserslautern,

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

. After starting with amateurs Eintracht Bad Kreuznach and having a spell with

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

's reserves, he joined 1. FSV Mainz 05 in 2002, helping the club promote from the

second division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

in his second year with 18 matches. Abel made his

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

debut on 14 August 2004, in a 2–1 home win over

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

. He scored three goals during the season, as his team maintained its status. From 2006 onwards, Abel would appear sparingly for several clubs: FC Schalke 04 – which also loaned him for five months to Hamburg – and

1. FC Kaiserslautern 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern () or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in sev ...

, appearing almost exclusively for the latter's B-side during two years. This was mainly due to two consecutive

anterior cruciate ligament The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of a pair of cruciate ligament Cruciate ligaments (also cruciform ligaments) are pairs of ligaments arranged like a letter X. They occur in several joints of the body, such as the knee joint and th ...

injuries (in early 2004, he suffered the same injury while at Mainz, being sidelined for six months). Abel's first appearance for Kaiserslautern's first team only took place on 26 October 2010, as an early substitute in a 3–0 home win against Arminia Bielefeld for the campaign's

German Cup The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considere ...

. Four days later, he managed to play the full 90 minutes in the league fixture against Borussia Mönchengladbach (same venue and result). In February 2013 Abel was linked with

China League One The Chinese Football Association China League (), also known as China League One or Chinese Jia League (中甲联赛), is the second level of professional football in China. Above League One is the Chinese Super League. Prior to the formation of ...

team Beijing Baxy FC, but nothing came of it. After his contract with ''Lautern'' expired in the summer, he went on trial with Brunei DPMM FC of the

S.League The Singapore Premier League, commonly abbreviated as SPL, officially known as the AIA Singapore Premier League for sponsorship reasons, is a men's professional football league sanctioned by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), which re ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Abel, Mathias 1981 births Living people People from Kaiserslautern German footballers Association football defenders Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players Borussia Dortmund II players 1. FSV Mainz 05 players FC Schalke 04 players Hamburger SV players 1. FC Kaiserslautern players 1. FC Kaiserslautern II players Footballers from Rhineland-Palatinate 21st-century German people