Manuel Peter Neuer was born on 27 March 1986 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, and progressed through Schalke 04's youth system, making his Bundesliga debut at 20 in 2006 and serving as club captain before joining Bayern Munich in 2011.
At Bayern, after early fan resistance, he established himself as essential to the club's golden era, winning a club-record 13 Bundesliga titles, five DFB-Pokal trophies and two UEFA Champions League titles (2013 and 2020) as part of trebles, plus multiple domestic and European cups. He holds Bundesliga records for clean sheets (224) and the fastest path to 100 league clean sheets, and has been named Best European Goalkeeper a record five times.
For Germany he earned 124 caps, captained the side from 2017 to 2023 and won the 2014 FIFA World Cup, picking up the Golden Glove as best goalkeeper of the tournament. He retired from international duty in August 2024 after Euro 2024.
Standing 1.93 m, Neuer is widely regarded as the inventor of the modern "sweeper-keeper" — combining elite reflexes, line dominance, ball control and risk-taking distribution to fundamentally change what is asked of goalkeepers. At 39 he became Bayern's oldest Champions League player ever in 2025-26, and is regarded by his peers and the wider game as one of the greatest goalkeepers in football history.