Sven Bender

Having been a product of their academy since the age of 4, Bender played from 1993 to 1999 in the youth of TSV Brannenburg. From 1999 to 2002, he was part of SpVgg Unterhaching youth teams. In summer 2002, Bender moved to the 1860 München youth team.^[7]

He started his football career on the U-14 team and played for all of 1860 München's youth teams in three years. In November 2007, Bender extended his contract with the club until 2011. In 2009, Munich had to sell both Lars and Sven Bender, due to club's financial problem. Sven moved to Borussia Dortmund and Lars moved to Bayer Leverkusen. Sven played 65 games and scored 1 goal for 1860 Munich.^[7]

On 1 July 2009, Bender joined Borussia Dortmund, where he signed a four-year contract that tied him to the club until 2013.^[8] Bender made his Bundesliga debut on 19 September 2009 in a game against Hannover 96. His biggest rival for the spot in the defensive midfield suffered several injuries and Bender established himself in the starting eleven very quickly. He scored his first Bundesliga goal on 12 February 2011 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern and extended his contract until 2017. The years 2011 and 2012 were very successful for Bender, as he was an important player in Dortmund's midfield and helped the team win the national championship in both years as well as the DFB-Pokal in 2012.^[8] On 6 January 2013, Bender extended his contract with Dortmund, keeping him at the club until 2017.^[9] During the 2012–13 season, he was struggling with several injuries which made Dortmund sign Nuri Şahin in January 2013. After treatment of his injury, Bender got another opponent for his position. He was on his way to becoming the number one player on his position and shared a place with team's captain Sebastian Kehl and helped the team to reach 2013 UEFA Champions League Final, although they were defeated by their domestic rivals Bayern Munich. On 27 July 2013, Bender won the 2013 DFL-Supercup with Dortmund 4–2 against Bayern Munich.^[10] In February 2014, he suffered injury after a loss against Hamburger SV,^[11] which eventually ruled him out for the rest season. On 21 February 2016, Bender signed a five-year contract extension to keep him at the club until 2021.^[12]

On 13 July 2017, Bender ended his eight-year stay at Borussia Dortmund,^[13] signing a four-year contract with fellow Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen until July 2021, and re-uniting with his brother Lars.^[14] Nearing the conclusion of the 2020–21 season, Leverkusen announced that both Sven and Lars would depart Leverkusen and retire from professional football after the end of the season.^[15] In May 2021, Sven Bender started the last match of his career against former club Borussia Dortmund, where he played until coming off for his brother Lars, who later scored a penalty in an eventual 1–3 loss.