Arda Güler (Altindag, 2005) is barely 18 years old and is a star in Turkey: she has 2.2 million followers on Instagram, has played 51 games with the Fenerbahçe first team (9 goals and 12 assists), He made his debut in November 2022 with the Turkish national team at the age of 17 and on June 19 he became the youngest scorer in the history of the Ottoman team in an official match. His projection seems infinite and that had already caught the attention of several greats in Europe, not only Madrid and Barça. Ajax, Benfica and Sevilla, among others, followed his lead.
The 17.5 million euros of his clause seem too much for a promise of Turkish football, but world football observers already gave him a similar consideration, in fact his value in Transfermarkt is 15 million. And he knows what it is to move significant amounts since he was a very young boy, in February 2019, at just 13 years old, he was transferred from Ankara’s Gençlerbirligi (his native Altindag is a neighborhood in the capital’s metropolitan area) in exchange for 150,000 liras Turkish (in addition to rights for subsequent operations), at the exchange rate of 25,500 euros at that time (today, 5,300 euros).
At Gençlerbirligi, he quickly gained a reputation for skill and quick-witted, also among the seniors in the first team, for whom he acted as a ball boy during matches, so much so that his nickname came from there: ‘Two and a half’, Turkish nickname to refer to the kids from the youth academy who hunt the balls during matches. Until by chance, during a duel of his team against Osmanlisporcaught the attention of Serhat Pekmezci, a legendary Fenerbahçe scout. The matter escalated to the sports director of the club at the time, the Frenchman Damien Comolli, and together they prepared a DVD for the club’s president, Ali Koçwho ended up convinced by the virtues of that little three-quarter player (he measures 176 centimeters).
A little boy in the “cruel” Turkish football
After shining with the under-19 team, he debuted with the seniors at just 16 and a half years of age and in just over a year he has become a key player in the eleven: this past year he accumulated more than 1,500 minutes (overcoming that barrier made his clause from 5 million to 17.5 million) and played every minute of the second leg of the semifinals and the final of the last Turkish Cup, the first title of his record (he delivered an assist in the decisive match against Basaksehir). His idol is Alex de Souza, the foreigner with the most caps in the history of Fenerbahçe, whose ’10’ he has inherited, although he also shows a predilection for ex-Madridista Özil. And in Turkey there is no measure when it comes to talking about him: “One like this comes out every 100 years,” Fanatik, the Istanbul sports newspaper, headlined on its front page.
The physical plot always raised questions: a small, puny-looking lad in gritty Turkish football. Hence, even his compatriots thought that for him an exit is the best option. As in the case of Emre Belozoglu, formerly of Atlético and Inter, who made him train with the seniors at the end of the 2020-21 season. “They told me that he was very weak. It is true that he was only 16 years old then. But I hope that he marks the future of football in our country, he has more talent than me. Turkish football is cruel, so I would like him to go to a European league as soon as possible.”