Patrick Helmes

Patrick Helmes (born March 1, 1984 in Cologne, West Germany) is a Germany association football striker who plays for Bayer 04 Leverkusen. Until September 2007 he was captain of 1. FC Köln.

Career

Youth

As a youth player, Helmes was active in local clubs in Freudenberg, Westphalia and Siegen. He joined 1. FC Köln in 1997, at the age of 13. However, he was regarded as too unstable and sent away in 2000. He subsequently went back to Sportfreunde Siegen, where he had already spent some time as a youth player. In 2004/05, he scored 21 goals for his team in the Fußball-Regionalliga, which made him top scorer of the league, helping his team to promotion to the second division.

Köln

He then joined his old club Köln again, where he made his Fußball-Bundesliga debut in 2005 and scored his first goal in his second game, against rivals Bayer 04 Leverkusen. After his club was promoted to the second division, Helmes became one of the most important players for his side, scoring 7 times in his first 5 games of the season and keeping Köln at the top of the table. However, he scored the last of those goals with a broken foot. The injury kept him out of the squad for the following 4 months, during which his team performed extremely poorly and lost all chances to return to the first division.

Patrick did not hide his intention of joining another team. Even though he confirmed that he will join Bayer Leverkusen in 2008/09 season, Köln coach Christoph Daum still named him captain of the squad in summer 2007. He was later replaced as captain, but nevertheless had a good second half of the season, for which Kicker (sports magazine) sportsmagazine named him best striker of Germany's second division, ahead of Oliver Neuville, Chinedu Obasi and Demba Ba.

Leverkusen

At Leverkusen, Helmes had a good start in the 2008/09-season, even though he was injured in June and had to pause for three weeks. Forming a duo with Stefan Kießling, he scored six goals in the first 5 games of the season, among them a hattrick against Hannover 96. Only months after signing until 2012, his contract was extended and is now valid until 2013.

National Team

Helmes was nominated for the national team for the first time by Joachim Löw. He made his international debut for Germany national football team in a friendly against Denmark national football team on March 28 2007, being substituted for Jan Schlaudraff in 80th minute. He made two more short appearances afterwards, before he was nominated for the starting squad for the first time on September 12 2007 in a friendly against Romania national football team held at RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, in which he was joined by fellow Cologne local hero Lukas Podolski. He was included in Joachim Löw 26 man provisional UEFA Euro 2008 squad but was eventually left out in favour of Oliver Neuville.

Helmes' nickname is Moppel, a German diminutive for pug, often used to describe a chubby kid.