Giray Kaçar

Giray Kaçar — Biography

Remzi Giray Kaçar was born on 15 March 1985 in Karaman, the son of a schoolteacher mother and a father who worked as a civil servant at the Turkish Standards Institute. He took up football at age eight in Gençlerbirliği's youth system, spending four years there and winning three lower-division titles, while also competing as a black-belt taekwondo practitioner, a licensed swimmer and a trophy-winning handball player, and studying at Gazi University's School of Physical Education and Sport. After making his Süper Lig debut in 2007, he transferred to Trabzonspor in 2008, spending the longest and best-known stretch of his career there as a central defender standing 1.89 meters tall.

Early in 2012 he scored twice in a win over Bursaspor, but shortly afterward announced a break from football due to a heart-vessel condition; he returned to the pitch after tests in the United States cleared him to play. In the closing years of his career he lost his place to other defenders and fell out of the first-team picture; he earned a single cap for the Turkey national team and has occasionally appeared as a commentator in the sports media since retiring.