Christian Backs (born 26 August 1962) is a German former professional

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

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Club career

Backs came through the

youth academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if ...

of BFC Dynamo and played professionally for BFC Dynamo (later named FC Berlin) for 12 seasons, winning eight East German titles and two cups in the 1980s.

International career

During this time he won nine caps for

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, scoring once. He was also involved in the East German Olympic team who qualified for the

1984 Olympics The 1984 Olympics may refer to: *The 1984 Winter Olympics, which were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia *The 1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an intern ...

, but was forced to stay at home, because of the East Germans'

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict s ...

of the tournament.

Coaching career

After

reunification A political union is a type of political entity which is composed of, or created from, smaller polities, or the process which achieves this. These smaller polities are usually called federated states and federal territories in a federal governmen ...

, Backs wound down his career with Reinickendorfer Füchse, where he played from 1992 to 1997. He took over as manager of the 'Foxes' in 2000, where he remained until 2004 when he took the reins at his old club Dynamo. He only lasted a year, however, and after a brief spell at

Berliner AK Berliner AK 07 is a German football club based in the locality of Moabit of the borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The team competes in the fourth tier Regionalliga Nordost. History The association was established on 15 December 1907 in t ...

, returned to Reinickendorf, where he remained until 2009. In summer 2009 returning to BFC Dynamo for a second spell as manager and was in March 2010 fired.

Honours

DDR-Oberliga The DDR-Oberliga (English: ''East German Premier League'' or ''GDR Premier League'') was the top-level association football league in East Germany. Overview Following World War II, separate sports competitions emerged in the occupied eastern ...

: 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 * FDGB Pokal: 1988, 1989

External links

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References

1962 births Living people German men's footballers Men's association football midfielders East German men's footballers East Germany men's international footballers Berliner FC Dynamo players SG Bergmann-Borsig players Füchse Berlin Reinickendorf players Berliner FC Dynamo managers German football managers Footballers from Berlin Sportspeople from East Berlin {{Germany-footy-midfielder-1960s-stub