BIOGRAPHY
Christian Schwarzer still holds the record for the most goals scored for the German national team, with 966 goals put into the net in 319 international games.
Schwarzer - nicknamed ‘Blacky’ in English, a loose translation of his surname - spent most of his career playing in Germany for German clubs, but his two seasons abroad in Barcelona gave him an EHF Champions League title to add to his other achievements. He scored 2,189 goals in the Bundesliga during his career.
Schwarzer was born in Braunschweig in 1969, and after starting his handball at TSG Bergedorf, his first senior club was VfL Fredenbeck. He spent nine years with TV Niederwürzbach before his short stay in Barcelona, and then returned to Germany to finish his career at TBV Lemgo and Rhein-Neckar Löwen.
Lemgo brought him his biggest domestic club successes, as the club won the Bundesliga in 2003. Schwarzer also picked up the EHF Cup in 2006 with Lemgo.
Schwarzer made his national team debut against East Germany in 1989 and went on to play at six world and five European championships as well as four Olympic Games. He came away with some of Germany’s greatest achievements on the international stage: EHF EURO 2004 gold and 2007 World Champioship gold, as well as silver at the EHF EURO 2002 and Athens 2004 Olympic Games, and a further bronze from the EHF EURO 1998.
Since retirement in 2009, Schwarzer has worked as a coach - including leading the German junior team for a while - and a motivational speaker.
