Tolgay Arslan

Tolgay Arslan — Biography

Tolgay Arslan is a German former midfielder of Turkish descent, born in Paderborn. His career is defined by his Bundesliga years at Hamburger SV, two Süper Lig titles with Beşiktaş and, finally, spells in Australia and Japan. He holds both German and Turkish citizenship and played for both countries at youth international level. On 27 May 2026, aged 35, he announced his retirement from football, calling it "one of the hardest decisions of my life".

He started out at his home-town club Grün-Weiß Paderborn and joined the Borussia Dortmund youth system in 2003. In 2008-09 he won the western U-19 league with Dortmund and finished as its top scorer, with 30 goals in 26 games. He joined Hamburger SV on a free transfer in 2009; in 2010-11 he was loaned to Alemannia Aachen, scoring 6 goals in the 2. Bundesliga. He scored his first Bundesliga goal against Borussia Mönchengladbach in February 2012, and he spent five and a half years at the club in total.

He moved to Beşiktaş in January 2015. Coming on as a substitute against Liverpool in the Europa League, he scored the goal that took the tie to a penalty shootout, and the team went through; he won the Süper Lig in 2015-16 and 2016-17. He joined Fenerbahçe in 2019, left by mutual consent in 2020 for Udinese, and moved to Başakşehir in 2021. In 2023 he signed for Melbourne City in Australia. At Sanfrecce Hiroshima, which he joined in 2024, he scored a hat-trick in his first season and won the J.League Cup and the Japanese Super Cup in 2025.