Player Profile

A veteran international for Germany who featured 72 times for his country, a two-time title winner with Bayern München, and winner of Serie A with Milan. Ziege was certainly an experienced player when Houllier decided he would be the man to fill the left-back position. He arrived in a blaze of controversy from Middlesbrough who claimed Liverpool had made an illegal approach for the player, which they were later fined £20,000 for by the Football Association. Ziege had plenty of experience, but he never fit in at Anfield. No one questioned his potential to deliver pin-point crosses, but something seemed to go wrong when a high-profile club came in for him, Ziege having also experienced difficulties adjusting at Milan. Liverpool were victorious in his sole season at the club, winning a treble, but Ziege was rooted to the bench in four out of the last five games he was in the squad.

Ziege was transferred to Tottenham Hotspur in July 2001, hardly worth the trouble it took to get him to Liverpool. He returned in two months with his new club at Anfield determined to show his worth. "I am going to be very motivated for this game and for now it is not necessary to say any more than that. Do I really need to say what this game means to me? No, I don't think so." He played in 47 Premier League matches for Tottenham during a three-year stay, scoring seven times. He suffered a horror injury against Charlton on Boxing Day 2002 that restricted him to 90 minutes of action in thirteen months. Ziege was rushed into hospital after his thigh muscle had blown to twice its normal size after the game that he received his marching orders in after also being sent off on 23 December. Ziege underwent an emergency surgery that saved his right leg from amputation.

In 2004 the left wing-back returned to his homeland, joining Borussia Mönchengladbach, but he only played for a season before announcing his retirement as a player because of injury at the age of thirty-three. In 2006 he became the head coach of Gladbach's under-17 team and a year later was appointed as the club's director of football. Towards the end of 2008 Ziege left Gladbach and 18 months later he became the head coach of Armenia Bielefeld. But Armenia's next season started dreadfully with just one victory from the opening eight matches. After yet another defeat early in November 2010, Ziege was unsurprisingly released from his post. Ziege is currently the coach of Germany's under-18 international side.

In March 2014 Ziege returned to club management when he became the head coach of SpVgg Unterhaching, a club on the outskirts of Munich but a much smaller club than its neighbours Bayern Munich, with whom Christian Ziege enjoyed so much success in the 1990s. He remained there for a year, then had coaching spells with Atletico Baleares in Mallorca and Ratchaburi Mitr Phil in Thailand, before taking over with Austrian third-tier side FC Pinzgau in April 2019. In April 2022 he stepped up to become their sporting director.