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Hakan Calhanoglu: The greatest free kick specialist in the game today

Hakan Calhanoglu: The greatest free kick specialist in the game today

It’s February 2014 and Hamburger SV are second from bottom in the Bundesliga. Coach Bert van Marwijk has been relieved of his duties after a disastrous run of eight consecutive defeats in all competitions. On this cold Saturday, a 57,000-capacity crowd fear the worst as title-chasing Borussia Dortmund are in town, ready to inflict further damage to a wounded animal. In their past two meetings, Jurgen Klopp’s side scored a combined 10 goals—they eat Hamburgers for breakfast, so to speak.

Die Rothosen need something special. And boy, do they get it.

Against all odds and expectation, Hamburg are 2-0 up as the game clock clicks past 90 minutes. Then, something truly amazing happens. The home team wins a free kick just outside the centre circle. It’s the kind of free kick that might typically be passed out to a winger, or back to a defender to burn some time and protect a 2-0 win.

But when you have Hakan Çalhanoğlu, one of the best free kick specialist in the game today, that’s not how you handle the situation …

“I guess it was one of my best efforts ever,” says the 22-year-old Turkish international, somewhat understating the magnificence of successfully converting a 50-yard free kick.

“The goalkeeper didn’t expect that I would try it. There was no Dortmund player in front of me, so I just did it. All my coaches always enforced me to try efforts like that because they knew—and know—that I have the technical abilities to succeed."

Certain players have become synonymous with their ability to find the back of the net from behind a human wall. Dimitri Payet, Lionel Messi and Andrea Pirlo are all notable for their free kick flair, but the very best dead-ball specialist in the game right now might be the man who outfoxed Dortmund’s Roman Weidenfeller from distance.

Born and raised in Mannheim, south-west Germany, Çalhanoğlu (pronounced “Chal-han-oh-loo”) joined local side Karlsruher as a 15-year-old and graduated into the senior side not long after. He signed a four-year deal with Hamburg in the summer of 2012, but was immediately loaned back to Karlsruher for the 2012-13 campaign.

In that season, it became clear that Çalhanoğlu was a master of the dead ball arts. He scored seven direct free kicks in the 2012-13 campaign, helping a very grateful Karlsruher to earn promotion to the second tier.

His free kick skills have shown no signs of abating. A few months after stunning the Bundesliga with his long-ranger against Dortmund, Çalhanoğlu signed a €14.5m ($16m) deal with Bayer Leverkusen. Last season, he scored an incredible six direct free kicks. Bayer 04 never lost a game when he converted in a dead ball situation.

Çalhanoğlu now has a total of 11 Bundesliga direct free kick goals to his name and a well-earned reputation for striking fear into the hearts of goalkeepers as they set up their defensive walls. (It must be noted that he’s no slouch from open play, either.

His free kick approach is as fruitful as it is varied. While certain players are very predictable in their approach, the 22-year-old Bayer 04 star will mix it up delicate curling efforts, fierce knuckleballs (when the ball is hit hard in the centre and does not spin) or daisy-cutting low drives into the bottom corner.

“I do not have a favorite kind of free kick,” he says following a training session in the build-up to Leverkusen’s final league match of the 2015-16 season. “It always depends on the specific situation. If the ball lies in a central position in front of the box you have a few possibilities—more than from a position left or right of the goal.”

“The nearer the ball lies to the goal the more difficult the free kick is, because there is the wall of players in front, and less space for the ball to lower after passing the wall.”

Çalhanoğlu fancies his chances the most when he is in a position to put “extreme” amounts of spin on the ball. “I like to give the ball spin. In that situation, I approach the ball laterally and follow through—I try not to stop the movement of the [kicking] leg. My left leg needs to be straight."

“These are the perfect conditions for a free kick [laughs] OK, you need some talent, too.”

Talent is something that Çalhanoğlu certainly doesn’t lack, and something that he is able to recognise in his peers. When asked about the best free kick takers in the game today, he mentions Roma’s Miralem Panic and Werder Bremen’s Zlatko Junusovic.

The man he most admires, however, is Juninho Pernambucano. The retired Brazilian, who spent part of the 2013 season with the New York Red Bulls, is often cited as one of the greatest dead ball specialists ever to grace a field. “He is still my free-kick idol,” says Calhanoglu. “He was brilliant!”

Those in the United States who wish to learn more about Çalhanoğlu’s oeuvre have never had a better opportunity to do so. In its first year on Fox Networks, over 230 Bundesliga matches were broadcast, earning a viewership twice a high as La Liga, five times higher than Serie A and 10 times higher than Ligue 1.

It’s also been another incredibly successful season for Çalhanoğlu and his Bayer 04 brethren—an impressive run of eight wins in their last nine earned a third-place finish and automatic qualification for next season’s Champions League. What’s more, their international profile is continually increasing, thanks in large part to the acquisition of their outstanding top scorer Javier Hernandez. (Surely there was no better value-for-money summer transfer than his €12m ($13.5m) move from Manchester United—and no bigger reason to doubt the personnel expertise of Louis Van Gaal.)

While we await the return of Çalhanoğlu to his familiar black and red stripes, the next stage on which we will see him perform will be Euro 2016. After an impressive qualification campaign—during which his Turkey side helped keep the Netherlands at home this summer—Turkey face a very challenging group featuring reigning champions Spain, a Czech Republic side who took points from them in qualifying, and a tough opener against Croatia at the Parc Des Princes.

“Spain, Czech Republic and Croatia are opponents of high quality,” reasons Çalhanoğlu. “But we will try our best. You can be sure that everybody in the Turkish team wants to get through. Maybe there will be a surprise after the group stage.”

Well, if anyone is capable of pulling off a surprise in France this summer, then it might just be the man who can convert 50-yard free kicks.