David Degen (born 15 February 1983) is a former

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

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 lea ...

who last played for

FC Basel Fussball Club Basel 1893, widely known as FC Basel, FCB, or just Basel, is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Basel, in the Basel-Stadt, Canton of Basel-Stadt. Formed in 1893, the club has been List of Swiss footba ...

, mostly as a

right midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

, in the

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

. He is half Dutch as his mother is from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. His

twin brother Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

Philipp Degen Philipp Degen (; born 15 February 1983) is a retired Swiss professional footballer. Degen was usually a right back who could also play at left back or on the right wing. Degen reached the last 16 in the 2006 World Cup with Switzerland and was se ...

was also a professional football player.

Club career

Degen started his youth football with local club FC Oberdorf. In 1996, he transferred to the youth teams of

playing in their U-18 and U-21 teams. He started his professional career at

FC Aarau FC Aarau is a Swiss professional football club based in Aarau. Founded in 1902, the club competes in the Swiss Challenge League, the second tier of Swiss football after being relegated from the Swiss Super League. History FC Aarau was form ...

in 2000 but returned to Basel in 2003. With the club, during the Super League season 2003–04 and 2004–05, Degen won two domestic League Titles. Degen moved to

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

club

Borussia Mönchengladbach Borussia Verein für Leibesübungen 1900 e.V. Mönchengladbach, better known as Borussia Mönchengladbach () and colloquially known as just Gladbach, is a professional Association football, football club based in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-W ...

in 2006. He played his debut for Mönchengladbach on 14 October 2006 in the game against

VfL Wolfsburg Verein für Leibesübungen Wolfsburg e. V., commonly known as VfL Wolfsburg (), is a German professional sports club based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. The club grew out of a multi-sports club for Volkswagen workers in the city of Wolfsburg. I ...

and scored his first goal for his new club in that game. However, after the club's relegation in the Bundesliga season 2006–07 into the 2. Bundesliga, Borussia manager

Jos Luhukay Jos Luhukay (born 13 June 1963) is a Dutch football manager and former player, who was most recently head coach of VVV-Venlo. Playing career He began his career at the age of 15 at his hometown club FC VVV and he made his league debut in Janua ...

loaned him out to his former club, Basel for the 2007–08 season. On 22 August 2008, he returned to Switzerland on a permanent deal with

BSC Young Boys Berner Sport Club Young Boys (YB by short abbreviation, ) is a Swiss professional sports club based in Bern, Switzerland. Its first team has won 17 Swiss league championships and eight Swiss Cups. YB is one of the most successful Swiss footbal ...

. Degen spent four seasons in Bern playing 106 league matches and scoring 17 goals. On 31 May 2012, Basel announced that they had signed Degen on a contract up until June 2015 together with his brother

Philipp Philipp is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: "Philipp" has also been a shortened version of Philippson, a German surname especially prevalent amongst German Jews and Dutch Jews. Surname * Adolf Philipp (18 ...

. He started his first game for his team following his return against

Servette FC Servette FC is a Swiss professional Association football, football club based in Geneva, founded in March 1890 with rugby as its first sporting activity, and named after the Geneva district of the same name. The football section was created on ...

on 13 July and scored the winning goal to the 1–0 victory. At the end of the Swiss Super League season 2012–13 Degen won the Championship title and was Swiss Cup runner up with Basel. In the

2012–13 UEFA Europa League The 2012–13 UEFA Europa League was the 42nd season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 4th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. The final was played at the Amsterdam Are ...

Basel advanced as far as the

semi-finals A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

, there being matched against the reigning

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

holders Chelsea, but were knocked out being beaten 2–5 on aggregate. At the end of the 2013–14 Super League season Degan won his fifth league championship with Basel. They also reached the final of the

2013–14 Swiss Cup The 2013–14 Swiss Cup was the 89th season of Switzerland's annual football cup competition. The competition started on 14 August 2013 with the first game of Round 1 and ended in May 2014 with the Final. The winners of the competition qualified f ...

, but were beaten 2–0 by

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

after extra time. In the 2013–14 Champions League season Basel in the

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

finished the group in third position to qualify for Europa League knockout phase and here they advanced as far as the quarter-finals. After the season Degen retired from professional football.

International career

Degen was selected for the

2006 World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams represe ...

squad. However, he only played in the warm-up games. Degen was left out of the squad to play at

UEFA Euro 2008 The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2008 or simply Euro 2008, was the 13th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football tournament contested by the member nations of UEFA ( ...

Honours

;Basel *

: 2003–04, 2004–05, 2007–08,

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, 2013–14 *

Swiss Cup The Swiss Cup (; ; ; ) is a football cup competition that has been organised annually since 1925–26 season by the Swiss Football Association. The Swiss Cup final is usually the most important game of the year with a high attendance. The co ...

: 2002–03, 2007–08 * Uhren Cup: 2003, 2013

Club statistics

References

External links

David Degen & Philipp Degen Online – The Official Website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Degen, David 1983 births Living people Swiss men's footballers Switzerland men's youth international footballers Switzerland men's under-21 international footballers Switzerland men's international footballers Swiss expatriate men's footballers FC Aarau players FC Basel players BSC Young Boys players Borussia Mönchengladbach players 2006 FIFA World Cup players Bundesliga players Expatriate men's footballers in Germany Swiss Super League players Swiss twins Sportspeople from Liestal Men's association football midfielders Footballers from Basel-Landschaft 21st-century Swiss sportsmen