Melbourne City have signed Tolgay Arslan fresh from a three-season stint in Serie A – a player with a star cast of ex teammates and an unexpected reason for landing in Australia.
Melbourne City’s newest recruit, Tolgay Arslan, arrives at the reigning Isuzu UTE A-League premiers direct from the Italian top flight.
But who is the 32-year-old, and what inspired his decision to turn down “many offers from Europe” to swap Serie A for the A-League Men, and begin his Australian journey?
The answer dates back more than five years, when Arslan first realised his desire to one day move Down Under.
“I remember when I was playing for Besiktas in Turkey, I had an inner voice inside saying: ’One day I will play (in Australia)’,” Arslan explained upon signing for Melbourne City.
DONE DEAL! Melbourne City announce signing of Serie A midfielder with impressive CV
“We had the offer (from City) and we talked,” he continued. “I wanted to do something new after Udinese, we decided in January. So (Udinese) offered me four more years to continue… (but) I really wanted to join that club and that country.
“I have three kids and as a family, we decided to do something new after Udinese. I’m really happy with the decision now to come to Australia. For me, it was Melbourne or nothing.
“I was watching the final, the grand final, and it was not going well, you could say.
“I like that (City) dominate football. In the final, sometimes you have a bad day, a really bad day, and it was that day.
“I like the idea of playing (style), and also the ideas of the coach. I spoke also to him (Rado Vidosic). I can say I had many offers from Europe, but my first talk with the director, with the coach, all the staff there, I had a feeling.”
Arslan is a versatile central midfielder who in 2010, revealed Zinedine Zidane and George Hagi were his footballing idols growing up. He has played both holding and attacking roles throughout his career, starting out as a number 10 but experiencing success as a striker in the Borussia Dortmund academy, scoring 30 goals in a single season in 2009.
He has since spent his career operating in midfield roles and his proficiency in both forward and deep areas make him a perfect fit to a fluid City system.
Arslan was born in Paderborn, Germany to Turkish parents from Çorum. He represented both nations as a result in youth football, featuring for Turkey’s U19 and U21 sides as well as Germany’s U20 and U21 sides without making a senior international appearance for either county.
In club football, Arslan was plucked from Dortmund’s youth system by Hamburg in 2009. Near the end of his stint at the German club, Arslan was linked with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal before signing a long-term contract with Besiktas in Turkey in 2015. Two years later Arslan was linked with Arsenal once more, before rumours of interest from Chelsea and Newcastle United in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
He won two Super Lig titles with Besiktas before joining Turkish rivals Fenerbahçe in 2019 for one season before signing for Italian club Udinese in 2020. He played almost 100 Serie A games in his three-season stint at Udinese, and was a regular in the squad in the most recent Serie A campaign, making 36 appearances and scoring against Inter Milan in September.
Arslan arrives in Australia with significant experience accrued across the top two tiers of German football, the Turkish top flight, Italian Serie A and both the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.
Whilst at Besiktas he featured in six Champions League fixtures: two against Bayern Munich, two against Monaco and one against both FC Porto and RB Leipzig. But perhaps his most influential moment in UEFA’s prestigious continental competitions came in the 2014-15 Europa League season for Besiktas against Liverpool in the Round of 32.
Besiktas trailed Liverpool 1-0 after leg one, but Arslan scored the all-important second-leg goal in a 1-0 reverse that sent the tie to penalties; Arslan scored Besiktas’ fifth spot kick, before Dejan Lovren missed for Liverpool to confirm the Turkish club’s progression to the Round of 16.
Throughout his career Arslan has played alongside a number of high-profile players, including Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Heung-Min Son, Rafael van der Vaart and Hakan Calhanoglu at Hamburg, and Mario Gomez at Besiktas.
Closer to home, Australian fans will recognise a number of players to grace the A-League Men whom Arslan once called teammates, including current Western Sydney Wanderers captain Marcelo Guedes, former Adelaide United and Western United defender Ersan Gulum and former Wanderers and Central Coast Mariners midfielder Nicolai Muller.
But there was one former A-Leagues star in particular who played a role in convincing Arslan of his move to City.
“I was speaking to (Filip) Hološko who was also playing in Australia,” Arslan said. “He said it’s amazing, so if you really want to go there, don’t think.”
