Turkiye’s Arda Guler in action against Austria on July 2. — AFP
FEW players have made as big an impact, in as little time, as Turkiye and Real Madrid’s Arda Guler, with the 19-year-old’s recent performances for club and country propelling him towards a superstardom for which he has long been prepared.
Hailed as the ‘‘Turkish Messi’’ while emerging as a precocious teenager at Fenerbahce in his native country, Guler made a sensational goalscoring run late in the 2023-24 La Liga season with Real – who he joined in a US$21.5mil (RM101.45mil) deal last summer.
He has continued that hot streak at Euro 2024, where he became the youngest player to score on their European Championship debut with a stunning goal in Turkiye’s opening group game against Georgia – breaking a record held by Cristiano Ronaldo.
And on Tuesday, he helped Turkiye to a 2-1 win over Austria that booked their place in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals.
Off the pitch, Guler is already a much bigger star in Turkiye than even Jude Bellingham is in England.
“It’s still very early to suggest he will be a Messi or Ronaldo – Arda is still a boy – but he is a superstar in the making,” says Koray Palaz, coach of Turkish lower division team Kusadasispor and a pundit in Germany this month with Turkish channel TRT.
“There’s something special about the way Arda touches the ball, sees the game, sees the whole picture. He’s different from others. Whenever he gets the ball, you just know he will do something.”
Born in February 2005 in Altindag near Ankara, Guler first emerged at Genclerbirligi, a club known for fostering young talent now in Turkey’s second tier.
Word of his talent quickly spread and in 2019, still just 13, he moved to Fenerbahce. It was a sizable bet that would quickly pay off.
A Fener fan since he could remember, Guler aimed to follow his boyhood hero Alex de Souza, a Brazilian creative midfielder who won three Turkish Super Lig titles for the Istanbul club between 2004 and 2012.
Guler (left) scoring against Villarreal in the La Liga. — AFP
It was immediately clear that Guler had the potential to also reach the top, says Tahir Karapinar, then Fenerbahce’s academy director.
“When I saw him on the pitch, his left foot and his football intelligence blew my mind,” Karapinar tells The Athletic.
“But most of all, his hard work. If you tell him what he can improve, and if he believes you, he works so hard.”
Within 18 months, Guler was playing for Fener’s Under-19 side at the age of just 15. He scored 10 goals and provided seven assists in 22 games through 2020-21, even as his coaches set extra challenges to test him and develop his all-round play.
Senior Fener manager Vitor Pereira, who had lots of experience developing young talents at previous club Porto, was watching closely and wanted to see him first hand.
“In the first session, he played like he would in the street with his friends,” Pereira says.
“The character, the self-confidence, was very impressive. From day one, the experienced players would pass him the ball, respect him when he took shots, crosses. If he missed, he would try again, again, again. We imagined a great future for him.”
Guler’s first senior goal came in Alanya in March 2022, a neat volley at the far post. At 17 years and 21 days, he became the youngest scorer in Fenerbahce’s history.
When Ozil left in summer 2022, Guler inherited the number 10 shirt.
New coach Jorge Jesus used the Europa League to give him opportunities. Within months, he was a starter in every competition.
He finished his first full senior season with six goals and seven assists in 35 games, the technical quality and power of his sweet left foot leaving its mark.
Manchester City, Paris St Germain, Ajax and Atletico Madrid all enquired in early summer 2023, but Barcelona seemed best placed.
Barca president Joan Laporta publicly acknowledged an interest but the club’s deep financial issues made it difficult to trigger his release clause.
Real were following the situation closely, if more quietly.
Guler and his father were convinced by their long-term plans for him, and the Spanish giants agreed to pay slightly over his release clause – 20mil (RM101.58mil) plus a 20% sell-on clause for Fener.
Starting games on the right wing, Guler kept making the most of his opportunities.
“I want to keep scoring goals and making the fans happy,” Guler told Real Madrid TV in May.
“I never thought I’d have numbers like this. I just think about football and working hard. Even when I was not playing, Ancelotti talked to me, told me to be patient, keep working, and my moment would come.”
Then national team manager Stefan Kuntz gave him a full international debut as a sub against the Czech Republic in Nov 2022, when he was still just 17. His first senior goal came in June 2023 – a trademark left-footed curler in a 2-0 win over Wales.
Guler was unavailable through injury when Vincenzo Montella took over as coach last September, and he missed all four Euro 2024 qualifiers that autumn. He then only started one of Turkiye’s four friendlies in March and June – a 6-1 defeat by Austria (when fellow 19-year old Kenan Yildiz of Juventus started too).
Montella clearly had doubts about how to fit his talented kids into the XI for the Euros. But Turkish fans and pundits were clamouring loudly for them to start, especially Guler after his burst of goals for Real.
Montella went with an attacking line-up against Georgia and was rewarded. The match was level at 1-1 when Guler skipped infield from the left. No defender came to close him down, and nobody who had seen him for Fener or Real was surprised at what came next.
When substituted after 79 minutes, the goal the crowning moment of an excellent all-round display, Guler received a standing ovation from a stadium packed with Turkish fans.
“It feels incredible,” he said after being named player of the match. “I dreamed about this goal. I’d like it to be a gift for the Turkish fans.”
Palaz has no doubt that, whatever happens over the rest of these Euros, Guler will achieve much more than other talented playmakers to come out of Turkiye in recent decades such as Arda Turan, Emre Belozoglu or Tugay Kerimoglu.
“You cannot yet compare with a Messi or Ronaldo, who have won World Cups, Euros, Champions Leagues,” Palaz says.
“But I can assure you that Arda Guler will have more success than (Turan, Emre or Tugay). He still needs to develop his physical attributes.
“He is a very raw talent, tactically he still has a long way to go. But he is in the right place at Real.” — The Athletic
