Lutz Pfannenstiel, the German who was once described as “the craziest man in football”, has emerged as a contender for the vacant sporting director position at Aberdeen.
Pfannenstiel, the former goalkeeper who made history when he became the first footballer to play professionally in all six FIFA confederations, has held similar roles at Hoffenheim and Fortuna Dusseldorf in his homeland and St Louis City in the United States.
The 52-year-old departed St Louis, the new MLS franchise he built up from scratch after being appointed in 2020 and saw top the Western Conference and qualify for the CONCACAF Champions Cup in their debut campaign in 2023, last month and is interested in the Pittodrie post.
He has worked extensively as an analyst in the media since retiring from playing in 2011, including for the BBC, CNN, DAZN, ESPN and Eurosport, and has an association with Aberdeen as a result.
He is a regular co-commentator alongside Derek Rae, the Scottish commentator who was born and brought up in Aberdeen and is a lifelong Dons supporter, on the Bundesliga world feed as well as ESPN’s coverage of German football.
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He was with Rae at Pittodrie when Aberdeen beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 in the Europa League group stages back in 2023 and has followed the Scottish Cup winners’ fortunes closely since.
Pfannenstiel played over 400 games for 25 clubs in six different continents during a nomadic career which spanned 21 years. He wrote an acclaimed autobiography about his experiences called The Incredible Adventures of The Unstoppable Keeper, which was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2014.
In The Unstoppable Keeper he recounts how:
- He was wrongly accused of match fixing in Singapore and forced to spend 101 days in prison.
- He once kidnapped a penguin in New Zealand and kept it in his bathtub.
- He was pronounced clinically dead three times during a game for Bradford Park Avenue in the Unibond League in England.
Four Four Two magazine dubbed the one-time goalkeeping coach and former Cuba and Namibia assistant manager “the craziest man in football” in their review of his remarkable memoirs.
However, Pfannenstiel is also a hugely respected figure in his native Germany. He is widely considered to be one of the leading sporting directors to have worked in the Bundesliga and is renowned for his extensive network of contacts in the European and global game.
He scoured the world looking for players when he was the chief international scout at Hoffenheim and famously discovered a teenage Roberto Firmino playing as a defensive midfielder for Brazilian lower league club Figueirense as well as winger Joelinton turning out for Sport Recife.
He banked Hoffenheim huge sums of money in player sales during his lengthy tenure at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena. Firmino was signed for €4m in 2010 and sold to Liverpool for €41m in 2015 and Joelinton was bought for €2.2m in 2015 and purchased by Newcastle United for €43.5m in 2019.
Pfannenstiel was headhunted by Fortuna Dusseldorf in 2018 and spent two years working as the chief executive of their sport division. He then received a lucrative offer from MLS expansion team St Louis City in 2020.
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He lured Borussia Dortmund and Switzerland goalkeeper Roman Burki, who was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2023, to Missouri and promoted local talent and academy kids to the first team.
Aberdeen – whose Swedish manager Jimmy Thelin is under intense pressure after a dire start to the 2025/26 campaign – are looking for a new sporting director following the departure of Steven Gunn last week after 25 years of “outstanding service”.
They have spoken to Pfannenstiel, who is intrigued at the prospect of working at an established Scottish club with a strong tradition in the game, about the vacancy along with a number of other candidates.
He has close ties with the consultancy group BPTC, which is headed by former German field hockey coach and one-time Hamburg and Hoffenheim sporting and high performance director Bernhard Peters, who carried out their holistic review of football operations at Aberdeen last year.
One source said, “Aberdeen are well aware of Lutz and there is an existing and friendly relationship between them.”
Pfannenstiel formed Global United FC, an international, non-profit association that uses football to implement projects in the areas affected by environmental and social issues, in 2009 and once spent a week living in an igloo to raise awareness of climate change.
He was quizzed about the more colourful aspects of his playing career in a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian in 2015.
Asked about being falsely accused of match fixing and imprisoned in Singapore in 2001, he said, “It was a horrible time and I still have nightmares about it. When you wake up and you’re lying next to murderers and rapists without a toothbrush and without toilet paper, it makes you re-evaluate the life you had before. I soon realised that football wasn’t everything.
“It’s difficult to instantly move on from things like that, although it did make me appreciate what is really important in life. Footballers go to training in their nice cars and expensive clothes without a care in the world. In that respect, prison made me grow up fast.”
He was also quizzed about the occasion that he kidnapped a penguin from a local colony when he was playing for Dunedin Technical in New Zealand. “That bloody penguin!” he said. “It’s all anyone asks me about. When I was told that I could be deported because of it, he was soon sent back.”
