İlkay Gündoğan

İlkay Gündoğan is a German professional footballer who was born in Gelsenkirchen on 24 October 1990 to Turkish parents.¹² A midfielder, he won the league-and-cup double with Borussia Dortmund in 2012 and captained Manchester City to a continental treble in 2022–23.¹ After a season at Barcelona he returned to City and then joined Galatasaray in 2025; he won 82 caps for Germany and captained them at Euro 2024.¹

Gündoğan was born in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, to Turkish parents; his paternal grandfather was a guest worker who moved from Balıkesir in Turkey to the Ruhr region to work as a miner.¹ He began his career at SV Gelsenkirchen-Hessler 06, spent three years at Schalke 04, and later came through the youth ranks of VfL Bochum.¹

After a spell at 1. FC Nürnberg, Gündoğan joined Borussia Dortmund in 2011 and won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal double in his first season, scoring Dortmund's goal in the 2013 Champions League final.¹ In 2016 he became the first signing of the Pep Guardiola era at Manchester City, winning five Premier League titles and, as captain, the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble of 2022–23.¹ He spent the 2023–24 season at Barcelona, returned to City for a year, and in September 2025 joined Galatasaray on a free transfer.¹

Gündoğan made his Germany debut in 2011 and played at Euro 2012, the World Cups of 2018 and 2022, and Euro 2020.¹ He captained Germany on home soil at Euro 2024 and announced his international retirement that August, closing with 82 caps and 19 goals.¹

This section presents the positions found in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. The English article's Personal life section states, in the article's own voice, that "Gündoğan is a Muslim", citing Arab News of 16 June 2018 and The Independent of 28 November 2022 — an identification of Islam for him personally that names no school.¹ The Arabic article's infobox likewise gives his religion as "Islam" in the generic, and its text names no school.² Under the museum's two-source rule, which requires two independent sources to name a school for the person himself, his school is therefore recorded as unknown, with the generic wording preserved in the data record.¹² The English article also records the controversy that followed his 2018 meeting, with Mesut Özil, with Turkey's president before the World Cup, and his later support for Özil when Özil resigned from the national team citing racism and disrespect.¹

• İlkay Gündoğan — English Wikipedia¹
• İlkay Gündoğan — Arabic Wikipedia²