Ünal Alpuğan

Ünal Alpuğan — Biography

Ünal Alpuğan was born on August 3, 1973, into a Turkish worker family in Gelsenkirchen, a German city with a large Turkish population, and holds both Turkish and German citizenship. He started out in the youth ranks of Westfalia Buer, then rose through SG Wattenscheid 09's academy to its reserve side, making 20 Regionalliga appearances for Wattenscheid's reserves in 1994-95. In 1995 he moved to amateur club FC Rhade, and two seasons later joined Schalke 04's second team.

At Schalke he was brought into the first-team squad partly to interpret for new signing Hami Mandıralı and partly to cover an injury crisis, and his work ethic won over manager Huub Stevens; he made his Bundesliga debut away at VfB Stuttgart on February 20, 1999, went on to play regularly for three seasons, and won the DFB-Pokal in 2000-01. He transferred to Çaykur Rizespor in 2001-02, spending five seasons there and helping the club win promotion to the Süper Lig in 2002-03, then moved to İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor, where two seasons included another promotion to the Süper Lig, in 2006-07. He closed out his career in Germany with YEG Hassel, serving in his final season as both player and player-coach. In a 2020 interview he said he had not turned his back on football.