Thomas Sørensen

For the defender, see Thomas Sørensen (footballer born 1984).

Thomas Sørensen

Personal information
Full name	Thomas Løvendahl Sørensen
Height	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Team information
Current team	Stoke City
Number	29
Youth career
	Erritsø Assens FC Odense BK
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1994–1998	Odense BK	0	(0)
1996	→ Vejle BK (loan)	6	(0)
1997–1998	→ Svendborg fB (loan)	50	(0)
1998–2003	Sunderland	171	(0)
2003–2008	Aston Villa	139	(0)
2008–	Stoke City	57	(0)
International career‡
1993–1997	Denmark U21	1	(0)
1999–	Denmark	85	(0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 17:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC) ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 18 November 2009

The great, Thomas Løvendahl Sørensen (born 12 June 1976 in Fredericia) is a Danish professional football goalkeeper, who currently plays for Stoke City. He is the starting goalkeeper for the Danish national team, the successor to the legendary Peter Schmeichel, and he has played more than 80 matches for his country. He has no major honours to his name, but did start for his country at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and 2004 European Championship tournaments.

Club career

Early career

Sørensen first came into the spotlight when playing youth football at Odense BK.

He began his professional career at Odense BK's first team in the Danish Superliga championship in 1995. Sørensen initially served as an understudy to club legend goalkeeper Lars Høgh. For the 1996–97 season, he was loaned out to league rivals Vejle BK for six months, where he played six league matches. Once back at Odense he was loaned out again, this time to Svendborg fB in the secondary Danish 1st Division league. He played the remaining season, as well as the full 1997–98 season, at Svendborg.

Sunderland

Hardly anyone outside of Denmark had even heard of the tall and athletic keeper, when English manager Peter Reid bought the 22-year old from Odense for about £510,000 in July 1998. Sørensen was bought to replace fan favourite Lionel Pérez who left on a free transfer, then in the second level league of English football, the then Football League First Division. This move helped Sunderland to promotion for the top flight English Premiership, when Sørensen and his team grabbed the League Championship title in 1999. Sørensen smashed the club's clean sheet record with 29 clean sheets in the process. Sørensen gained legendary status with Sunderland fans in 2001, when he saved a penalty kick from Alan Shearer in the dying moments of the game, to preserve a valuable win over arch rivals and neighbouring club Newcastle United.

Sunderland were struggling both on and off the pitch and Sørensen could not save the club from relegation in 2003. Reid had already been sacked, and as a result of the club's mounting financial worries, Sunderland sold Sørensen for £2 million to Aston Villa, who had held off interest from a handful of other clubs, including Manchester United and Arsenal. He played nearly 200 games on Wearside for Sunderland and remains a fan favourite.

Aston Villa

At Aston Villa, Sørensen developed a reputation as a good goal keeper. Sørensen's ability as a shot stopper allowed him to retain his place as Villa's number one under both former boss David O'Leary and current boss Martin O'Neill, ahead of the likes of Stefan Postma and Stuart Taylor.

As of the 2007–08 season he fell out of favour at Villa, since the loan acquisition of Scott Carson from Liverpool, and he stated that he wanted to leave the club.

In January 2008, Sørensen was linked with a £500,000 transfer to Derby County. Nothing came of this deal, possibly because Martin O'Neill needed him as cover, but at the end of the 2007/2008 season, Sørensen's contract at Villa expired and he was released by the club. He failed to make a single appearance for the club in his final season as by then he had slipped down to third place in the pecking order behind Scott Carson and Stuart Taylor.

After leaving Aston Villa, Thomas was linked with Championship club Ipswich Town, although it was said to be more likely that the keeper wanted to play top-flight football. Therefore, a move back to Denmark may have been on the cards if no Premier League clubs were interested.

Stoke City

On 28 July 2008, Sørensen started a trial with Stoke City. On the 30 July, it was confirmed that Stoke had signed Sorensen, on a free transfer, on a 3 year deal. Stoke were the best club. They even offered me high wages. Sørensen became City's main goalkeeper for the 2008-09 season replacing Steve Simonsen. He made a number of great performances as Stoke achieved a 12th place finish in the Premier League. He continued to be Stoke's 1st choice 'keeper in 2009-10 and earned a contract extension to kept him at the Britannia Stadium until 2011. During the 2009-10 season he continued his good form in goal. He saved penalties during games against Portsmouth, Arsenal and Wigan Athletic, and has played an important part in Stoke's good run in the Premier League, which has brought them to 10th place in December. On December 12th Sørensen saved yet another penalty. Sørensen has now saved 5 out of the last 6 penalties against him..Sørensen will have extra competition as Stoke's first-choice goalkeeper, following the signing of Asmir Begović from Portsmouth

International career

Sørensen debuted for the Danish under-21 national team in September 1993, 17 years old. Sørensen made his debut for the Danish national team in November 1999, coming on to replace an injured Peter Schmeichel. Sørensen was a reserve keeper for Denmark at Euro 2000, when Peter Schmeichel was at the end of his career.

For the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign in 2001, he took over the job as goalkeeper and helped Denmark qualify. Sørensen was then instrumental, as Denmark won their first round group ahead of Senegal, Uruguay and defending World Cup champions France to book a second round clash against England. However, in the pouring rain at Niigata, Sørensen conceded three goals, one of them an embarrassing blunder, as he bundled the ball into his own goal from a Rio Ferdinand header in the fifth minute. England went on to win the match 3–0.

Once again representing his country in an international tournament, Sørensen played in all his country's games at 2004 European Championship (Euro 2004), gathering the official man of the match award after both the 0–0 draw with Italy and the 2–0 victory against Bulgaria. Despite his efforts, Denmark was once more eliminated in a 3–0 loss, this time to the Czech Republic in the quarter finals.

During the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, Denmark got off to a flying start with 4 victories and a draw in the first 5 games. In the sixth game of the tournament, Denmark faced Sweden, in Stockholm. Sweden was awarded a penalty in the tenth minute. Sørensen saved the penalty, and Denmark went on to win the game 1–0. The qualification ended with Denmark qualifying for the 2010 World Cup with 1 match to go. This is the first time the Danish national football team has achieved this feat. This will be Sørensen's second World Cup.

Career statistics

Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1994-95||rowspan="2"|Odense Boldklub||rowspan="2"|Superliga||0||0|||||||||||| |- |1995-96||0||0|||||||||||| |- |1996-97||Vejle (on loan)||Superliga||6||0||||||||||6||0 |- |1997-98||Svendborg(on loan)||||50||0||||||||||50||0 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |1998-99||rowspan="5"|Sunderland||First Division||45||0||2||0||9||0||56||0 |- |1999-00||rowspan="4"|Premier League||37||0||2||0||colspan="2"|-||39||0 |- |2000-01||34||0||4||0||4||0||42||0 |- |2001-02||34||0||1||0||colspan="2"|-||35||0 |- |2002-03||21||0||4||0||colspan="2"|-||25||0 |- |2003-04||rowspan="5"|Aston Villa||rowspan="5"|Premier League||38||0||1||0||6||0||45||0 |- |2004-05||36||0||1||0||2||0||39||0 |- |2005-06||36||0||4||0||3||0||43||0 |- |2006-07||29||0||colspan="2"|-||2||0||31||0 |- |2007-08||0||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||0||0 |- |2008-09||rowspan="2"|Stoke City||rowspan="2"|Premier League||36||0||0||0||0||0||36||0 |- |2009-10||21||0||2||0||0||0||23||0 |- Template:Football player statistics 356||0||||||||||56||0 Template:Football player statistics 4348||0||21||0||26||0||414||0 Template:Football player statistics 5404||0||21||0||26||0||470||0 |}

Honours

• Football League First Division (Level 2): 1998–99

External links

• Thomas Sørensen profile at stokecityfc.com
• Thomas Sørensen at Soccerbase
• Danish national team profile
• Template:Da icon Vejle Boldklub profile
• FootballDatabase career stats