Most of the seasons without a break
© Imago
Patrick Mainka has also completed his second Bundesliga season without a break. The right -back of the 1st FC Heidenheim, who was still facing the relegation games on Thursday and Monday, made something that only two other field players in the German Oberhaus in the past 25 years. Nobody managed more than two seasons in a row without a missed minute in this century. The longest series once placed two football legends at Borussia Mönchengladbach and Eintracht Frankfurt.
Mainka is now one of only two active footballers who stood on the pitch for two seasons at every possible time in the Bundesliga. Christian Günter did the 2020/21 and 2021/22 at SC Freiburg (previously once 2017/18). In front of it, Philipp Lahm came two seasons in the upper house without a break in the seasons 2009/10 and 2010/11 at Bayern. In contrast to Lahm and Günter, the historical footnote applies to Mainka that the 30-year-old head of defense has not yet missed a single minute of the Heidenheim Bundesliga history. The FCH was challenged 68 times in the upper house, 68 times Mainka played through. So that the chance of a third full season is added in series, his team must now defeat SV Elversberg from the 2nd Bundesliga.
Three seasons in Bundesliga have so far managed seven players three seasons in a row, without missing a minute. Remarkable: Three of them were also active at Eintracht Braunschweig. Wolfgang Brase and Walter Schmidt played three full seasons side by side between 1963 and 1966. From the 1964/65 season, colleague Peter Kaack was added with his first full season, who then went through three seasons without a break until summer 1967. Michael Lameck achieved a four -series series from 1972/73 to 1975/76 at VfL Bochum.
The longest time without a missed Bundesliga minute, the Gladbacher and the Frankfurt legend Berti Vogts (from 1965) and Manfred Binz (from 1987). They were so indispensable in their teams that they were always on the field for six years. For Vogts, who even stayed without a break in nine seasons of the Gladbachers, his six seasons in a row were the first six of his professional career. In 1965 he started in the Gladbach Bundesliga team, in 1971 he was not on the field for the first time.
