Hakan Ünsal

Hakan Ünsal — Biography

Hakan Ünsal (born 14 May 1973 in Sinop) is a Turkish former international footballer who played at left back and as a left wing back from the early 1990s to the middle of the 2000s. He spent the bulk of that career at Galatasaray and, according to Persian-language sources, was part of the squad that won the UEFA Cup in 2000. Arabic-language records credit him with 257 appearances and 14 goals; he is listed at 1.78 m.

With the national team he finished third at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, a result repeated across the English, Portuguese and Russian accounts. Looking back on one of the tournament's disputed moments in a 2019 interview with Hürriyet, he said Rivaldo had "cheated".

After retiring he moved into television punditry — Azerbaijani sources record him as a commentator on TRT 1 — and Turkish outlets such as T24 and Ajansspor carried his views on derbies and club governance between 2019 and 2024. The Turkish encyclopaedia entry also names him as the fourth president of the Professional Footballers' Association. One caveat on sourcing: DBpedia lists his birthplace as "Turkey national football team", which is plainly a data error; he was born in Sinop.