Ahmet Çalık

Ahmet Çalık — Biography

Ahmet Çalık was a centre-back who came through the Gençlerbirliği academy, won two league titles with Galatasaray and reached the senior national team and the Euro 2016 squad. Athletic and reliant on pace and timing, he played as a man-marking defender in the middle of the back line. He died in Ankara on 11 January 2022, aged 27, and the remainder of that Süper Lig season was played in his name.

He began playing football at Gençlerbirliği in 2004, turned professional in the summer of 2011 and made his first-team debut on 21 April 2013 against Fenerbahçe, filling in for injured centre-backs in a 2-0 win. In 2015-16 he took over the captaincy. On 13 January 2017 he moved to Galatasaray, where he played 56 games and scored three goals in three and a half seasons, winning the Süper Lig in 2017-18 and 2018-19, the Turkish Cup in 2018-19 and the Super Cup in 2019. He signed with Konyaspor in October 2020 and made 51 appearances for the club up to his death.

He wore the shirt of Turkey's youth teams 45 times in all; with the under-17s he reached the semi-final of the 2010 European Championship and with the under-20s the last 16 of the 2013 FIFA World Cup. He made his senior debut in 2015 against Greece, was in the Euro 2016 squad without playing in the tournament and scored his first international goal against Moldova in March 2017. Konyaspor retired his number 6 shirt, and a sports hall in Konya also carries his name.