Christoph Dabrowski (born Krzysztof Dąbrowski; 1 August 1978) is a German

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

manager and former player who last managed

Rot-Weiss Essen Rot-Weiss Essen is a German association football club based in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club plays in the 3. Liga, at the Stadion an der Hafenstraße. The team won the DFB-Pokal in 1953, and the German championship in 1955. The latt ...

. He played for

Werder Bremen Sportverein Werder Bremen von 1899 e. V. (), commonly known as Werder Bremen, Werder or simply Bremen, is a German professional sports club based in Bremen. Founded on 4 February 1899, Werder are best known for their professional association foo ...

Arminia Bielefeld DSC Arminia Bielefeld (; full name: ; commonly known as Arminia Bielefeld (), also known as ''Die Arminen'' or ''Die Blauen'' ), or just Arminia (), is a German sports club from Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. Arminia is most well known as ...

, Hannover 96 and

VfL Bochum Verein für Leibesübungen Bochum 1848 Fußballgemeinschaft, commonly referred to as VfL Bochum (), is a Football in Germany, German professional association football club based in the city of Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. They currently play ...

Club career

On 11 May 1999, Dabrowski scored the decisive goal in

's 1–0 win against

Schalke 04 Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e. V., commonly known as Schalke 04 (), and abbreviated as S04 (), is a professional sports club from the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its football team, w ...

and greatly contributed to the club's

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

survival. It was also the first match with manager

Thomas Schaaf Thomas Schaaf (born 30 April 1961) is a German professional football manager, who last managed Werder Bremen and former player who played as a defender. A ' one-club man', Schaaf spent his entire playing career with Bundesliga club Werder Bremen ...

in charge of the team. Shortly afterwards he helped them win the

1998–99 DFB-Pokal The 1998–99 DFB-Pokal was the 56th season of the annual German Association football, football cup competition. Sixty-four teams competed in the tournament of six rounds which began on 28 August 1998 and ended on 6 June 1999. In the final SV Werd ...

, starting in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

against

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

as Bremen won on penalties.

International career

Of Polish descent, Dabrowski owns dual German-Polish citizenship and in October 2005 the

Polish Football Association The Polish Football Association ( PZPN) is the governing body of association football in Poland. It organizes the Polish football leagues (without the ), the national cups, and manages the men's and women's national teams. It also runs the nati ...

requested to nominate Dabrowski for their

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

. However, the

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

rejected the request because Dabrowski was not entitled to play for Poland, as he had already played for the German Team 2006.

Managerial career

On 10 October 2013, Dabrowski was named as the new assistant manager of

Hannover 96 Hannoverscher Sportverein von 1896, commonly referred to as Hannover 96 (), is a German professional association football, football club based in the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. They played in the Bundesliga for a total of 30 years between 19 ...

's reserve team,

Hannover 96 II Hannover 96 II is a German association football team from the city of Hanover, Lower Saxony. It is the reserve team of Hannover 96. The team's greatest success has been winning the now defunct German amateur football championship on three occasi ...

. He left this position on 28 January 2014, and was picked as the new manager of the U17 team of

. On 11 June 2015, Dabrowski was named as the new assistant coach of

under manager

Michael Frontzeck Michael Frontzeck (born 26 March 1964) is a German professional football coach and former player who was most recently assistant coach of VfL Wolfsburg. As a player he was a left back who notably played in the Bundesliga across three spells for ...

. On 1 December 2021, Dabrowski was announced as interim coach of Hannover 96 after Jan Zimmermann was sacked. The appointment was made permanent on 21 December 2021, after the team had won two out of three matches under Dabrowski; he received a contract until the end of the season. After the 2021–22 season he left Hannover. In June 2022, he was appointed by

. He was sacked in December 2024.

Personal life

Dabrowski was born in

Katowice Katowice (, ) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Katowice urban area. As of 2021, Katowice has an official population of 286,960, and a resident population estimate of around 315,000. K ...

and emigrated in the age of six years with his mother as an

ethnic German Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The constitution of Germany, implemented in 1949 following the end of World War ...

(''Aussiedler'') – his maternal grandfather had served in the German Wehrmacht and therefore got an Aussiedler status – from his country of birth and settled in

West-Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

Career statistics

Managerial statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dabrowski, Christoph 1978 births Living people Footballers from Katowice German men's footballers German football managers Germany men's under-21 international footballers Germany men's B international footballers Polish men's footballers Polish football managers German people of Polish descent Polish people of German descent Polish emigrants to Germany SV Werder Bremen players SV Werder Bremen II players Arminia Bielefeld players Hannover 96 players VfL Bochum players VfL Bochum II players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players Men's association football midfielders Hannover 96 managers Rot-Weiss Essen managers 2. Bundesliga managers 3. Liga managers Footballers from Berlin