The Turkish Engine of Stepney

Long read

Alper Bezirci arrived from Super Lig Dogu with the sort of reputation that usually results in a very expensive mistake. He is nineteen, wears the number 6, and possesses the habit of gliding past grown men as if they were stationary traffic. Most midfielders in this league treat the ball like a hot potato: they want it gone as quickly as possible. Bezirci prefers to keep it, using a combination of pace and dribbling that suggests he is playing a different game entirely.

The Alcantara match was a reasonably tidy demonstration of the method. He scored in the 18th minute and assisted in the 26th. By the 79th, he had provided another goal, effectively doing the work of an entire midfield unit. He then managed to get himself booked in the 81st minute, likely because the defenders had run out of polite ways to stop him. It is a specific kind of talent that allows a teenager to dominate a game and then immediately find a way to annoy the referee.

There was a similar spell of efficiency against Hitchin, where he found the net in the 38th minute. He has a way of making the difficult look tedious. He does not shout or gesture wildly. He simply moves the ball from point A to point B while the opposition looks on in a state of mild confusion.

Against Kirkby, he decided to be involved in every single goal of the match. He provided the assist in the 19th, scored himself in the 61st, and then turned up again in the 90th to lay on the winner. It was a comprehensive performance (typical really), if somewhat exhausted. He finished the season with 34 appearances, 7 goals and 7 assists. It is a balanced return for someone who looks like he should still be asking for permission to stay out late.

He is, by the standards of this league, a very high-quality player. To be fair, that is a polite way of saying he is far too good for the mud and the shouting of the top flight. He has the technical ability to make the game look easy, provided he doesn't get bored. Now he simply has to do it all again tomorrow.