MANUEL NEUER JOINS THE CLUB 500 !
Neuer, 12th member of Bundesliga “Club 500+ games”
Manuel Neuer has made last weekend (vs Wolfsburg 2-0) his 500th Bundesliga appearance (156 for Schalke and 344 for his current team Bayern).
He is 12th player to reach this mark in the Bundesliga history (since 1963) and only 3rd who did it in XXI century (along with Stefan Reuter and Oliver Kahn).
He became also the 4th goalkeeper in the Bundesliga “Club 500+ games”, after Uli Stein, Eike Immel and just mentioned Oliver Kahn.
The founder of this “Club” was Willi Neuberger, first ever player to conquer the peak 500.
Karl-Heinz Körbel is at the moment the only one to achieve the higher milestone of 600 games.
After Kahn entered it as the 11th member in 2006, the “Club 500+” remained frozen during more than 17 years. It took so much time for the 12th to emerge.
Now, there is a good chance that the next member will come pretty soon. The Neuer’s long-term team-mate Thomas Müller has amassed 472 games, so he should be able to reach the mark in the next season (if he stays in Bundesliga, of course).
| BUNDESLIGA | PLAYERS WITH MOST GAMES | ||||
| Player | Games | By teams | First Game | Last Game | |
| 1 | Karl-Heinz Körbel | 602 | Eintracht F 602 | 14/10/1972 | 08/06/1991 |
| 2 | Manfred Kaltz | 581 | Hamburg 581 | 20/08/1971 | 17/04/1991 |
| 3 | Oliver Kahn | 557 | Karlsruhe 128, Bayern 429 | 27/11/1987 | 17/05/2008 |
| 4 | Klaus Fichtel | 552 | Schalke 477, Werder 75 | 14/08/1965 | 21/05/1988 |
| 5 | Mirko Votava | 546 | Borussia D 189, Werder 357 | 25/09/1976 | 06/12/1996 |
| 6 | Klaus Fischer | 535 | Schalke 295, Köln 96, Bochum 84, 1860 München 60 | 17/08/1968 | 19/03/1988 |
| 7 | Eike Immel | 534 | Stuttgart 287, Borussia D 247 | 12/08/1978 | 17/06/1995 |
| 8 | Willi Neuberger | 520 | Eintracht F 267, Borussia D 148, Werder 63, Wuppertal 42 | 17/09/1966 | 04/06/1983 |
| 9 | Michael Lameck | 518 | Bochum 518 | 16/09/1972 | 16/04/1988 |
| 10 | Ulrich Stein | 512 | Hamburg 228, Eintracht F 224, Arminia 60 | 11/08/1978 | 11/04/1997 |
| 11 | Stefan Reuter | 502 | Nürnberg 100, Bayern 95, Borussia D 307 | 10/08/1985 | 15/05/2004 |
| 12 | Manuel Neuer | 500 | Schalke 156, Bayern 344 | 19/08/2006 |