Four Turks with a blaugrana past

On Tuesday 13 October, Hansi Flick’s Barça are set to play Galatasaray at the Ali Sami Yen stadium to fulfil the league phase matchday two fixture in the Champions League. The recent schedule for Aleksander Sekulić and the basketball team also saw them visit Istanbul on their latest European away day where they won against Besiktas.

It’s a good moment then to recall the Turkish players who have featured in blaugrana, whether at the Spotify Camp Nou or at the Palau Blaugrana. Both professional teams have had two players so far, footballers Arda Turan and Rüştü Reçber, and basketball players Sertac Şanlı and Ersan İlyasova.

Let’s start with the footballers. Arda Turan joined Barça in summer 2015 after having become one of the best LaLiga players on the back of two great seasons at Atlético Madrid. A club sanction at the time meant he couldn’t make his debut until January of the following year, and he ended his first season with 25 appearances and two goals.

In his second and final season, he scored 13 goals in 30 games including a hat-trick in the Champions League against Borussia Mönchengladbach. In January 2018, after not having featured in the first half of the season, he left on loan for two and a half seasons to İstanbul Başakşehir, bringing his spell as the second Turkish footballer at Barça to an end after Rüştü Reçber some 12 years earlier.

A charismatic keeper, who often painted stripes under his eyes when he played, he signed for Barça in 2003 after a superb 2002 World Cup for semi-finalists Turkey and after spending almost a decade with Fenerbahce. He only ended up playing seven games because Rijkaard chose a young Víctor Valdés as his keeper. All the same, Rüstü has always stated that he holds very fond memories of that season.

Moving on to the basketball team, the first Turk to feature was Ersan İlyasova. After an initial season in the NBA, he arrived as a very young man in 2007 to further his trade in Europe. He had a two-year spell in blaugrana, winning the league in 2009, before returning to the United States of America with the Milwaukee Bucks to ultimately forge a long career in the NBA. Fast forward to 2021 and the next Turkish player Sertaç Şanlı arrived.

Now playing for Besiktas, the center joined from Anadolu EFES and went on to play a key role for the Club over two seasons, making a total of 148 appearances and winning three trophies: a Lliga Catalana, a Copa del Rey and a Liga ACB. He left in 2023 and was the final Turk to feature for FC Barcelona to date.