Early years Born in
Hilden, Tarnat started to play football at the club
SV Hilden-Nord before starting his professional career in 1990 when he joined
MSV Duisburg. He made his
Bundesliga debut on 2 August 1991 in Duisburg's home match against
VfB Stuttgart and went on to make 58 appearances for the club in the league in the following two seasons, also scoring his first Bundesliga goal in Duisburg's 1–1 draw away against
VfB Leipzig on 27 August 1993. He moved to
Karlsruher SC in the summer of 1994 and grew into one of the team's stars, alongside
Thomas Häßler and
Thorsten Fink. His trademark was his super-hard left-footed shot, which made him one of the best free-kick takers of his Bundesliga generation. In three seasons with KSC, Tarnat made 81 Bundesliga appearances and scored seven goals for the club in the league. In 1996, he was called up into the
Germany national team for the first time and made his international debut in Germany's
1998 World Cup qualifier against
Armenia on 9 October 1996.
Bayern Munich In 1997, he got his big break when
Bayern Munich bought him along with Fink. He played well on his left flank, good enough to give star left full-back
Bixente Lizarazu almost a full season on the bench. In the following seasons, trainer
Ottmar Hitzfeld would often play them both, giving Bayern one of the best left flanks in Europe. Tarnat's Bayern career was extremely successful. He was German champion in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003, won the
DFB-Pokal in 1998, 2000 and 2003 and the
UEFA Champions League in 2001. Tarnat also played in the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final in which Bayern lost 2–1 to
Manchester United with two stoppage-time goals. In Bayern Munich's away match against
Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1999–2000 Bundesliga season, Tarnat memorably played half an hour in the second half as a
goalkeeper. In the match,
Oliver Kahn was forced to leave the pitch after sustaining an injury in collision with teammate
Samuel Kuffour and his replacement
Bernd Dreher was also injured after he spent less than ten minutes on the pitch, allowing Tarnat to come off the bench to take his place between the sticks. Very remarkably, Bayern had trailed 0–1, but scored the equaliser only two minutes after Tarnat entered the match and eventually managed to win 2–1 after Kuffour scored the winning goal in the 80th minute.
Manchester City and Hannover 96 In the late years, however, Tarnat became somewhat injury-prone, which effectively ended his international career in 1998 after 19
caps and caused Bayern to bench him often. In six seasons of playing for Bayern, Tarnat made 122 Bundesliga appearances and scored eight goals for the club in the league. He made a move to
Manchester City in 2003, making 32
Premier League appearances and scoring three goals for the club in the league before returning to Germany by signing with
Hannover 96 a year later, where he played for the rest of his career. On 17 May 2009, it was announced that he would retire from professional football. He played his last game for Hannover on 29 July 2009 vs Arsenal. In August 2009, Tarnat returned to
FC Bayern Munich as a talent scout. ==International career==