Joachim "Jogi" Löw (German pronunciation: [joˈʔaxiːm (ˈjoːɡi) ˈløːf]; born 3 February 1960 in Schönau im Schwarzwald) is the manager of the German national football team and a former football midfielder.

In 1978, Löw started his playing career with 2. Bundesliga club SC Freiburg. He returned to the club twice (1982, 1985) and holds the club's overall goal scoring record. In 1980, Löw joined VfB Stuttgart in the Fußball-Bundesliga, but he had difficulties establishing in the starting lineup and played only four matches. In the 1981–82 season, Löw played for Eintracht Frankfurt (24 matches, five goals), but he returned to Freiburg the following year. In 1982–83, he scored eight goals in 34 matches, 1983–84 he scored 17 goals in 31 matches in the 2. Bundesliga. Afterwards, he returned to the Bundesliga with Karlsruher SC, but he only scored two goals in 24 matches. Later, he joined Freiburg again for four years, played 116 matches and scored 38 goals. Löw concluded his career in Switzerland, where he played for FC Schaffhausen (1989–1992) and FC Winterthur (1992–1994).

Saint Joachim ("he whom YHWH has set up", Hebrew: יְהוֹיָקִים Yəhôyāqîm, Greek Ἰωακείμ Iōākeím) was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne appears first in the apocryphal Gospel of James. Joachim and Anne are not mentioned in the Bible.

Since the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke do not explicitly name either of Mary's parents, but apparently name two different fathers for Saint Joseph, many scholars from John of Damascus (8th C.), and particularly Protestant scholars, argue that the genealogy in Luke is actually the family tree of Mary, and that Heli is her father. To resolve the problem of Joseph having two fathers - one descended from Solomon, one descended from Nathan, son of David, traditions from the 7th Century specify that Heli was a first cousin of Joachim.

In the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim is described as a rich and pious man of the house of David who regularly gave to the poor and to the temple (synagogue) at Sepphoris. However, as his wife was barren, the high priest rejected Joachim and his sacrifice, as his wife's childlessness was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure. Joachim consequently withdrew to the desert where he fasted and did penance for forty days. Angels then appeared to both Joachim and Anne to promise them a child. Joachim later returned to Jerusalem and embraced Anne at the city gate. The cycle of legends concerning Joachim and Anne were included in the Golden Legend and remained popular in Christian art until the Council of Trent restricted the depiction of apocryphal events. Traditional depictions (e.g., vestibular statuary) of Joachim show him bearing a shovel.

Oliver Bierhoff (born 1 May 1968 in Karlsruhe) is a retired German former football striker, who scored the first golden goal in the history of major international football, for Germany in the Euro 96 final. He is mostly renowned for his excellent abilities as a target man being able to deliver pin-point headers towards goal.

The son of a German utility magnate, Bierhoff played for nine different clubs, in four different leagues. He scored a total of 103 goals in Serie A, one of the best totals for a non-Italian in the league's history. In the 1997–98 season, he was the Serie A top scorer with 27 goals for Udinese.

Bierhoff, however, was never a success in the Bundesliga. After failing to shine in Germany, he got his chance in the Austrian Bundesliga. That gave him the chance at Ascoli in Italy. But it was at Udinese, under Alberto Zaccheroni, that Bierhoff found success and won his place in fame and in the German national team. He then transferred to Milan in 1998, winning the Serie A title in his first season there. After three seasons there, he moved to French Ligue 1 side Monaco in 2001 for one year, before moving back to Serie A to play for Chievo Verona, where he retired at the end of the 2002–03 season. In his last ever game, he scored a hat-trick for Chievo Verona in a 3–4 defeat to Juventus.

Jürgen Klinsmann (born 30 July 1964 in Göppingen) is a German football manager and former player who is currently the coach of the United States men's National team. As a player, Klinsmann played for several prominent clubs in Europe and was part of the West German team that won the 1990 FIFA World Cup and the German one that won the 1996 UEFA European Championship. One of West Germany's/Germany's premier strikers during the 1990s, Klinsmann scored in all six major international tournaments he participated, from Euro 1988 to 1998 World Cup.

He managed the German national team to a third-place finish in the 2006 World Cup. On 12 July 2006, Klinsmann officially announced that he would step down as Germany's coach after two years in charge and be replaced by assistant coach Joachim Löw. He took over as coach of Bayern Munich in July 2008, when Ottmar Hitzfeld stepped down to take over as the head coach of the Swiss National Team. On 27 April 2009 he was released early, even though he had won five of the previous seven league games and was only three points behind league leader VfL Wolfsburg. In the jointly initiated reforms at Bayern it emerged there was a severe clash of opinions between coach and club management.

Mesut Özil (German pronunciation: [ˈmeːzut ˈøːzil], Turkish pronunciation: [me̞ˈsut ˈø̞zil]) (born 15 October 1988) is a German footballer who plays for Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid and the Germany national football team. Özil has been a youth national team member since 2006, and a member of the German national team since 2009. He gained international attention during the 2010 FIFA World Cup and was nominated for the Golden Ball Award, which is awarded to the tournament's best player. Following his breakout performance at the World Cup, he was transferred from Werder Bremen to Real Madrid in August 2010.

Özil is acclaimed for his finesse and improvisation as an attacking midfielder. His style and knack for providing assists for his team-mates has been compared to that of Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane. In 2011, he ranked second in assists in La Liga with 17, and first in major European competitions with 25.

Özil began his youth career playing for various clubs in Gelsenkirchen and then played five years for Rot-Weiss Essen.