Jerome Boateng

Jérôme Boateng is a German footballer of Ghanaian origin who was born in Berlin on September 3, 1988. He is a centre back of Bayern Munich and the German senior team. Jérôme is the World Cup 2010 bronze medalist, the winner of the FA Cup 2011 and the U-21 European Cup 2009.

Thanks to physical strength and large stature, Jérôme became famous for powerful play in the air. He started his football career at the Tennis Borussia youth team, which is based in Berlin.

For quite some time, from 2002 to 2006, the defender trained at Hertha Berlin. The Hertha’s coaches considered the young back to be one of the most gifted and talented players. On 10 March 2007, Jérôme made his Bundesliga debut for Hertha in a 1–3 defeat to Borussia Mönchengladbach. He played the entire match and received a yellow card in the 25th Bundesliga Round of the 2006/2007 season.

Boateng began the 2007/08 season in Hamburger SV which he joined on 22 August 2007 for €2.5 mln on a five-year deal. During that season Jérôme played 27 games, 26 of which were in the first team. Moreover, the back provided 2 assists, got 2 yellow cards and spent 2156 minutes on the pitch.

The following season Boateng made 21 appearances for Hamburger, but played only 14 first-team matches.

Jérôme made his national team debut on October 10, 2009 against Russia. The defender got a red card, but the match ended in a 1–0 victory for Germany.

On 5 May 2010 Hamburger announced about Boateng’s transfer to Manchester City for £10.4 million.

On 14 July 2011, after long negotiations, Jérôme became a player of Bayern Munich for a fee of €14 million.

Jérôme has a brother, Kevin-Prince who is a paramount figure at A.C. Milan. The relationship between the two brothers was damaged after Kevin-Prince had seriously injured Michael Ballack in the 2010 FA Cup Final. Ballack was the German captain at that time and was ruled out of the 2010 World Cup. Jérôme took offence at what his brother had done and stopped all contacts with him.