Midfielder | Trabzonspor | Turkey

Skinny

If he’d started his career 15 years ago, we might have been talking about a player who made a career against the odds.

The past few decades have been littered with quality footballers who have been told at some point they were ‘too small’. A 5’5” central midfield player like Abdulkadir Omur probably has the likes of Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi to thank for making his path to a top flight first XI even possible. On the other hand, he has these greats of the game to thank for the fact that in every newspaper gossip column that prints his name the moniker ‘The Turkish Messi’ will appear before it.

Despite his size, though, he truly is at home in the middle of the park - his low centre of gravity, his ability to find space and his eye for a pass are the tools of his trade.

If there’s a flaw in the 19-year-old’s game, however, it would have to be his penchant for over-complicating things. Perhaps that’s where the comparisons start - Omur does love a dribble - but he’d do well to limit his flash side and concentrate on the simpler parts of the game. After all, finding space and rarely giving the ball away are the trademarks of the very best central midfielders under 6 foot.

2018 Has Been…

… a year of consolidation.

The latter half of 2017 was Omur’s big breakthrough period. Playing for his hometown club, Trabzonspor, on the edge of the Black Sea, the tricky midfielder found himself becoming a fixture in the team before the turn of the year. Since then, he has continued as a midfield stalwart in the Turkish Super Lig.

His performances and place in the team have not gone unnoticed, either. Back in March he was called up to the Turkey squad in March for a friendly against the Republic of Ireland - although he hasn’t yet been given the opportunity to take to the field in a Turkey shirt in a full international.

What’s Next?

At just 19, Omur has plenty of time to mature and you get the feeling that a few more years in the Trabzonspor first team is where he belongs.

As long as he keeps adding an element of glitz to proceedings in his home country’s top flight, he’ll be linked with moves abroad, but in order to progress as a player he needs both game time and an absence of pressure. For the moment, the biggest hurdle in his path appears to be his penchant for the glamorous dribbles and Hollywood passes. Learning that there’s a time and place for such flourishes is vital, and doing that away from the glare of expectation - and a hefty price tag - would be ideal.

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