Sascha Bigalke (born 8 January 1990) is a German former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as an

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As #Cent ...

Career

Bigalke started his professional career with

Hertha BSC Hertha, Berliner Sport-Club e. V., commonly known as Hertha BSC (), and sometimes referred to as Hertha Berlin, Hertha BSC Berlin, or simply Hertha, is a German professional football club based in the locality of Westend of the borough of Charl ...

, making his first appearance on 31 July 2008 in the

2008–09 UEFA Cup The 2008–09 UEFA Cup was the 38th season of the UEFA Cup football tournament. The final was played at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, home ground of Fenerbahçe, in Istanbul on 20 May 2009. This season was the final one to use the UEFA Cup for ...

first qualifying round second leg against

FC Nistru Otaci FC Nistru Otaci was a Moldovan football club based in Otaci, Moldova. The club was founded on 17 August 1953. It was dissolved in 2017. History During the 1999–2000 season, the club played as FC Nistru-Unisport Otaci due to Nistru being expel ...

. In January 2011, he was set to transfer to

Arminia Bielefeld DSC Arminia Bielefeld (; full name: ; commonly known as Arminia Bielefeld (), also known as ''Die Arminen'' or ''Die Blauen'' ), or just Arminia (), is a German sports club from Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. Arminia offers the sports of ...

, but the deal fell through when Bigalke broke his foot shortly before the completion of the transfer. Having made only a single league appearance for Hertha, he moved on a free transfer to SpVgg Unterhaching in July 2011. At Unterhaching Bigalke became a key player, scoring nine goals and providing twelve assists in 45 matches (league and cup). After playing in a 1-2 first round DFB-Pokal loss against

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ballspi ...

he drew the opponent's attention and signed for them in August 2012, on transfer deadline day. The transfer fee allegedly amounted to €400,000 and helped chronically cash-strapped Unterhaching obtain a playing license. In his first season for 1. FC Köln, Bigalke played a decent role with 16 appearances with eight of them in the starting eleven. During the 2013–14 pre-season he tore his cruciate ligament running into the opponent's goalkeeper in a friendly against local side SF Troisdorf. Subsequently, he missed almost the whole season, only being substituted once at second to last matchday in a home fixture against

FC St. Pauli Fußball-Club St Pauli von 1910 e.V., commonly known as simply FC St Pauli (), is a German professional football club based in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, that competes in the 2. Bundesliga. The football department is part of a larger sp ...

in which Bigalke scored. On 22 July 2014, 1. FC Köln announced that Bigalke, along with four more players, would not be a part of the first team any more. Instead he was urged to leave the club and had to participate in training with the second team. Consequently, his contract was dissolved by mutual agreement and was able to return to Unterhaching on a free transfer. He signed for them on a one-year deal including an extension clause for another year. Bigalke retired from football in March 2021 due to injuries.

Career statistics

References

External links

* * * 1990 births Living people Footballers from Berlin German men's footballers Germany men's youth international footballers Men's association football midfielders Füchse Berlin Reinickendorf players Hertha BSC players Hertha BSC II players SpVgg Unterhaching players 1. FC Köln players Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players 3. Liga players Regionalliga players {{Germany-footy-midfielder-1990s-stub