Happy 50th birthday, Carsten Ramelow!

Few players in the world probably played more games in the legendary 2001/02 season than Ramelow, who featured 66 times for the Werkself and Germany. He started almost every match as he proved he was always reliable and unbreakable.

“a strategist who played almost flawlessly”

Bayer 04’s No.28 was an integral part of the team for almost 13 years. “When Calle wasn't on the pitch, you could tell straight away,” said his long-time teammate Oliver Neuville. “To outsiders, he may have often played inconspicuously, but as a teammate you always appreciated his presence on the pitch. He was a strategist who played almost flawlessly. For me, he’s comparable as a player to Didier Deschamps. He always found the simple solutions that looked easier than they were.” Someone like Deschamps, then, who won the World Cup with France as a player and coach and who has now coached his country for 12 years.

Unlike Deschamps, Ramelow may not have won any titles, but the Berlin native can also look back on a great career: “I won eight silver medals during my playing career. Of course, it would’ve been nice if one or two of them had been gold. But that certainly wouldn't have made me a different person.” Calle was runner-up four times with Bayer 04, he captained the club - in place of the injured Jens Nowotny - to the Champions League final against Real Madrid and the DFB Cup final against Schalke. And in the same season, he was runner-up with Germany at the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. “These experiences are more important to me than medals,” said the 46-time international.

“Someone you simply enjoy being with”

Ramelow shares many of these experiences with Nowotny, who remains one of his closest friends to this day. “We've known each other since our time together in Germany’s youth teams,” said Nowotny. “Calle possessed incredible intelligence. He was extremely important for the Bayer 04 team as the perfect link between defence and attack. Someone who never spared himself, who took responsibility and intervened when things weren't going so well. We understood each other on the pitch. And as a person, Calle is simply a great guy with his humour, down-to-earth attitude and honesty. Someone you simply enjoy being with.”

Ramelow played 430 competitive matches for Leverkusen over 13 years, with 333 of them in the Bundesliga. This puts him in fourth place in the Bayer 04 ranking of players with the most league games for the club behind Rüdiger Vollborn (401), Ulf Kirsten (350) and Stefan Kiessling (344). “Calle was a tactically clever player who plugged a lot of holes, had a good feel for match situations and never shirked a tackle,” said former Bayer 04 goalkeeper Jörg Butt. “Not someone who excelled with stepovers, overhead kicks or the like. But someone who played simply and effectively and who was very important for our stability. And anyone who can do that at a consistently high level for so many years deserves the greatest respect.”

And that he does. It’s why the Bayer 04 honorary captain is still held in such high esteem in Leverkusen. Happy 50th birthday, Calle!