Thomas Keller

Thomas Keller came through Bavaria's lower leagues before making his name in professional football, starting out in the youth ranks at SpVgg Unterhaching and then FC Ingolstadt 04, where he eventually broke into the first team and spent several seasons as a senior player. He joined 1. FC Heidenheim on a free transfer once his contract at Ingolstadt ran out, arriving with Bundesliga ambitions still to be realised.

That ambition was met almost immediately: in his first season at Heidenheim, the club won the 2. Bundesliga title and went up to the top flight. Keller's own contribution that campaign was modest in terms of minutes — seven league appearances and one in the DFB-Pokal — but he was part of a promotion-winning squad, a marker that will sit on his record regardless of how much of it he played from the pitch rather than the bench.

He stayed with Heidenheim for several years afterwards, wearing the number 27 shirt, before a fresh move took him to SG Dynamo Dresden on loan, a deal that was later made permanent. At Dresden he switched to the number 39 he now wears. The transfer fee reported for the permanent switch is disputed depending on the source, though a figure of around one million euros has circulated.

A right-footed defender by trade, Keller's career so far has been built on steady progression through the German football pyramid rather than a single defining moment — youth football in Munich and Ingolstadt, a rise to prominence with Heidenheim's promotion-winning group, and now a new chapter in Dresden.