Heinrich Schmidtgal

Heinrich Schmidtgal (Kazakh: Генрих Шмидтгаль, Genrih Şmidtgal; born 20 November 1985) is a Kazakhstani former professional footballer who played as a left-back.

Early life Born in Esik, Kazakh SSR, Schmidtgal emigrated with his parents at the age of two from the former Soviet Union and settled in Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock in East Westphalia in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Club career

Early career Schmidtgal started to play football at FC Hövelriege and move from there to the youth of SC Verl. On 27 August 2003, the second matchday of the Oberliga Westfalen, he made his debut for the first team in the 3–2 defeat against FC Gütersloh. In this season, where he was still a youth player, he came to a total of ten appearances. In the next season, he achieved a place in the starting eleven and came to 29 appearances. He showed above average performance and thus aroused the interest from clubs in higher leagues, among those VfL Bochum who signed him. Schmidtgal had previously contributed to Verl's promotion to the Regionalliga, the then third division.

VfL Bochum In Bochum, he played for the second team and did only train with the first team, which was playing in the Bundesliga.

International career In 2008 Bernd Storck, the newly appointed manager of the Kazakhstan national team, researched German players born in Kazakhstan. This research revealed Sergei Karimov, Juri Judt, Konstantin Engel and Heinrich Schmidtgal. Schmidtgal was not entitled by UEFA rules to play for the Kazakhstan national team in second qualifier game against Austria in Vienna, as Schmidtgal had not yet completed obtaining Kazakhstani citizenship and was only in possession of preliminary id (a provisional document not valid outside Kazakhstan). That match took place in Nuremberg, which has become contiguous with Fürth, where he played his club football at the time.

International goal Scores and results list Kazakhstan's goal tally first, score column indicates score after Schmidtgal goal.

+ International goal scored by Heinrich SchmidtgalNo.DateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition1 26 March 2013 Frankenstadion, Nuremberg, Germany 1–3 1–4 2014 World Cup qualifier