Jens Lehmann

Jens Lehmann(born November 10, 1969 in Essen) is a German football goalkeeper who currently plays for Arsenal.

Lehmann started his career in 1989 with Schalke 04, playing for them for nearly a decade. He was the club's hero in their 1997 UEFA Cup final victory over Internazionale, saving an Ivan Zamorano penalty in a penalty shootout. He left Schalke for AC Milan in 1998, but did not play well and was dropped after just five matches. He returned to Germany to play for Borussia Dortmund, winning the Bundesliga in 2001-2002. He joined Arsenal on July 25, 2003, and in his first season at the club, won the Premier League without a single loss.

Lehmann has a confident, aggressive style of play, often coming out of his goal to intercept passes; however this has led to some costly high-profile mistakes when playing for Arsenal, such as their 2004 UEFA Champions League quarter-final loss to Chelsea. By the middle of the 2004-05 season, Lehmann was no longer automatic first-choice, with Manuel Almunia being selected for some matches instead. However, Almunia then began to make many mistakes himself, allowing Lehmann to regain his position. At the end of that season, Lehmann produced a man-of-the-match performance against Manchester United in the 2005 FA Cup final, making numerous saves to keep the score 0-0 after extra time, and then crucially saving Paul Scholes' shot in the penalty shootout, which Arsenal won 5-4.

Lehmann is the second-choice goalkeeper for the German national team. He has a well-publicised rivalry with Oliver Kahn whose presence has long prevented Lehmann from becoming the number one goalkeeper for Germany. Lehmann made his debut for the national team against Oman in February 1998, and has since earned over twenty caps for his country.