Ziegler was born in
Blieskastel.
VfB Stuttgart was immersed in a goalkeeping crisis after the defection of legendary
Eike Immel to England's
Manchester City in the 1995 summer. Youth graduate Ziegler – then 19 – won the battle for first choice over longtime backup
Eberhard Trautner and played all
the season's matches save five, but the club finished tenth with the second-worst defensive record in the
Bundesliga, only winning to
Eintracht Frankfurt. In the following three years Ziegler only appeared in 12 more games combined, eventually leaving club and country in 2000 after a brief spell at
Arminia Bielefeld: he started in Turkey with
Bursaspor, then left in January 2001 to Austria, where he was the starter for
FC Tirol Innsbruck in back-to-back
national championship conquests. In
his second year he also stayed unbeaten for more than 1,000 minutes, coming close to an all-time European best. Ziegler moved teams but stayed in the country in the 2002 summer, signing with
FK Austria Wien, where he played rarely in two years, which were interspersed with a return to his country, at
Hannover 96. In the next two seasons, back in
Germany, he played with former youth side
1. FC Saarbrücken (
second division) and Arminia again. Ziegler signed with
Borussia Dortmund for the
2007–08 campaign, and split first-choice duties with
Roman Weidenfeller in that first year. On 29 January 2008, he saved a
penalty kick from
SV Werder Bremen's
Diego – who had already beat him from the same spot – in the
German Cup 2–1 home win; in the subsequent seasons, however, he was second choice. On 13 May 2010, 34-year-old Ziegler signed a three-year contract with former side Stuttgart, effective as of 1 July 2010. His input in his second spell consisted of two appearances in the
2010–11 UEFA Europa League, and he was released at the end of
2012–13. ==Career statistics==