Sergen Yalçın-Football Genius

It was almost 20 years ago when it dawned on Turkish football that they might just be on to something, that they possibly had it within themselves to have something more than just another player with the traditional Turkish sporting traits of fierce partisanship and almost spiritual passion.

Sergen Yalcin had a dream of a left foot and as his proficiency from free-kicks proves, one of the sweetest left foots in the history of football. He was a player of exceptional technique with a touch to envy and wonderful passing skills so visionary they might have been delivered by Mystic Meg. His skill and creativity enabled him to skip past opponents without moving faster then a jogger. Sergen Yalcin was capable of turning on the style and bamboozling the most resilient defence almost at will.

For a while Sergen's world revolved exclusively and apologetically around Sergen. He is the personification of indolent arrogance, arguably the most gifted footballer of his generation and yet one who, for several years, unashamedly placed his personal ambition above the greater needs of the many. He would skip trainings, enjoy the night-life and gamble (his special interest was in horse-racing, owning several racehorses). He had a reputation as a playboy, possessing a hair-trigger temper which often got him into trouble, especially with childish public pronouncements. Sergen was unable to offer anything more than a cursory defence when he was accused of allowing ego to eclipse reason during his formative years as a professional footballer.

When Barcelona and Bayern Munich invited him for contract talks, his response was "Why am I going to go there and talk to them? They should come and talk to me." But towards the end of his career, Sergen put his reputation of Turkish football's loose cannon or 'Infant Terrible' behind him, and finally started to fulfill some of his lost potential.

This is Sergen Yalcin, a pure footballing genius.