Jan Koller used to be a goalkeeper during his youth career but later became a striker at professional level.
He is Czech Republic’s all-time top scorer with 55 goals in 91 games. He featured in Euro 2000, 2004 and 2008, as well as the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He was named Czech Footballer of the Year in 1999.
At club level, he began his career at Sparta Prague where he won the Czech First League and Czech Cup, before leaving for Belgium to play for Lokeren and Anderlecht.
At Lokeren, he emerged Belgian League top scorer with 24 goals. At Anderlecht, he won the Belgian First Division twice and the Belgian Super Cup twice.
In 2001, Dortmund signed him from Anderlecht and he won the Bundesliga in his first season at the club.
He also helped the club reach the 2002 UEFA Cup final where he scored a goal in a 3-2 defeat to Feyenoord.
During a Bundesliga match against Bayern Munich in the 2002-03 season, Koller played in goal after goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off in the 67th minute and Dortmund had already used up all their substitutions.
Dortmund were down to nine players, as Torsten Frings had been sent off earlier before Lehmann, yet Koller didn’t concede any more goals for the rest of the match.
Due to his performance in that game, he was named by German magazine “Kicker” as the Bundesliga’s top goalkeeper of the week.
After five seasons at Dortmund, he played for Monaco, Nürnberg, Krylia Sovetov Samara and Cannes before he retired.
