Marco Streller

Marco Streller (born 18 June 1981 in Basel) is a Switzerland football striker, currently with the Swiss Super League's FC Basel, and also a Switzerland national football team.

Club career

Streller started his career with local club FC Basel in 2000 where he played one game in his debut season. He left Basel the next season to join feeder club FC Concordia Basel. He scored 16 goals in 30 starts in the Challenge League with Concordia which made Basel sit up and take notice. They bought him back in 2002 but he left in January of the next year to join FC Thun after playing just three games. He scored a decent amount of goals at Thun and was signed again by Basel but this time he was promised first team football.

During the 2003–04 season, he scored 13 goals in 16 games, gathering the interest of a handful of Fußball-Bundesliga clubs including VfB Stuttgart, who eventually signed him ahead of the 2004–05 season. He scored just four goals in 28 matches in his first half-season in Stuttgart, and was loaned out to FC Köln for the remainder of the 2006 season. After returning from Köln, where he made 14 starts, he still failed to impress at Stuttgart and was allowed to rejoin his boyhood heroes FC Basel on a free transfer in June 2007, for his fourth spell at the club. He was Basel's top goal-scorer during the FC Basel season 2007-08 with twelve league goals and 16 goals in all competitions, but missed the start of the FC Basel season 2008-09 after returning from UEFA Euro 2008 injured, playing his first game of the season in a 1-0 Schweizer Cup win over FC Schötz on September 20 2008. He scored his first goal of the 2008/09 season on October 18, in a 4-1 win over FC Bulle in the second round of the Swiss Cup.

International career

A Switzerland national football team since 2003, Streller played at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He was previously in the squad for the 2004 European Football Championship, but pulled out due to injury. During a 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification (UEFA) against Turkey national football team, he was lashed at and kicked by Turkey player Alpay Özalan. At the tournament's final stage he missed a spot-kick during his side's penalty shootout against Ukraine national football team, who emerged victorious.

His substitution in the last friendly game before the EURO 2008, against the Principality of Liechtenstein, was accompanied by catcalls from Swiss supporters, being dissatisfied with Streller's performance in that game. As a consequence, Marco Streller announced his international retirement after the EURO2008, citing he does not have "the full support of the fans". He was bashed about announcing such a move in front of the tournament not only by the Swiss press. Ottmar Hitzfeld, designated Swiss manager from July 2008, convinced Streller to continue his international career.

Honours

Basel
- Schweizer Cup: 2008
- Swiss Super League: 2004, 2008
- Uhrencup: 2008

Stuttgart
- DFB-Pokal Runner Up: 2007
- German Bundesliga: 2007