Real Madrid teenager embraced pressure of the occasion to orchestrate team’s raucous knockout win against Austria
It’s the 59th minute of the game. There’s a corner to be taken, and Arda Guler strolls over to take it. As he approaches the section of the stadium where Austria’s noisiest fans are gathered, the confetti is unleashed: a hailstorm of beer cups flying at him, near him, on him. The rain, heavy all night, has swelled to an epic peak. Turkey lead 1-0. Guler stands alone, raising an arm to the deluge, not drowning but waving.
And of course, we knew all about Guler already. We all saw the long-range goal against Georgia, saw his late-season bloom at Real Madrid, saw the breathless tributes from teammates and coaches, followed the origin story of this precocious left-footed teenager all the way from his childhood at Fenerbahce. We knew what he could do with a football. What we didn’t know – what nobody yet knew – was when he could do it.
Last December, at the Golden Boy awards in Turin, Jude Bellingham warned everyone that Guler would one day follow in his footsteps as European football’s greatest young player. Bellingham has seen what Guler can do in training, seen the way he has fought his way back from injury, seen him putting in the extra gym hours. But even Bellingham couldn’t have known how Guler would react to this noise, this hostility, this pressure, this pressure.
In fact, the emblematic moment of Guler’s evening takes place a couple of minutes earlier. Before the perfectly arced corner from which Merih Demiral would score Turkey’s second goal, before Guler turns and cups a glorious ear to the Austrian fans, before the torment and the triumph of the denouement.
Austria have started the second half well, and are beginning to home in on an equaliser. After Marko Arnautovic is the latest to go close, Guler turns and yells in anger towards the Turkish bench, arms spread wide, barking instructions. Exactly what he says is lost to the deafening din of the Leipzig night. But the message is clear: enough. We need some help here. There is a commotion on the touchline. Vincenzo Montella throws on the muscle of Salih Ozcan in midfield. And a couple of minutes later Turkey are celebrating a 2-0 lead, with Guler the orchestrator of both goals.
Were this an isolated series of coincidences, we could probably leave it there. But on a night of thrashing chaos and lawless combat, Guler was somehow not merely the creator but the conductor, not just the passer but the pasha, the lungs and the heart and the generalissimo energy behind Turkish football’s greatest night in a generation.
