The former Turkey international became a star under Diego Simeone but he went off the rails after a disastrous spell at Barcelona…
The signing of Arda Guler is already generating plenty of excitement at Real Madrid. Vinicius Junior, for example, has hailed the arrival of the Turkish teenager as further evidence of the club's enduring ability to attract the best young players on the planet: "Another one has chosen the greatest [club]."
The Guler transfer certainly represents quite the coup for Madrid, given he was also wanted by hated rivals Barcelona, among others. Indeed, he's already being touted as the best player to come out of Turkey since Arda Turan, a hugely divisive figure who left quite the mark on Spanish football.
Turan established himself as one of the best attacking midfielders in the world during his time at Atletico Madrid, but his subsequent spell at Barcelona proved a disaster. So, why did Arda flop at Camp Nou? Was he just not good enough? Or did he simply join at the wrong time?
Certainly, some would certainly argue that his move to Barca was doomed from the start…
Getty'The board needs a player like Arda'
At the very least, Arda's arrival in Catalunya effectively coincided with the beginning of the end of an era at Barcelona, the moment at which Josep Maria Bartomeu started making one terrible transfer after another, which eventually led to him resigning in disgrace in 2020.
In the summer of 2015, though, Bartomeu and Barcelona were basking in the glory of a treble, the decision to sign Luis Suarez the year before having immediately reaped rewards, with the Uruguayan forming arguably the greatest attacking triumvirate the game has ever seen with Neymar and Lionel Messi.
Luis Enrique, though, felt he needed even more quality in attack, so he asked then-president Bartomeu to acquire Arda, an accomplished but abrasive attacking midfielder who could also play as a winger – and one of the key members of the Atletico squad that had beaten Barca to the Liga title in 2013-14, and reached the final of the Champions League.
Bartomeu was only too happy to make his coach's request a reality. As far as he was concerned, Arda wasn't an option, he was an obligation. "The board needs to sign a player like him – they have to," Bartomeu said ahead of his re-election as Barca president in the summer of 2015. "They must sign Arda and incorporate him as soon as possible so that he can start the pre-season."
Barca didn't waste too much time agreeing a deal with Atletico for an initial €31 million (£26m/$34m) and €7m (£6m/$8m) in variables, meaning he was indeed added to the squad in time for pre-season. The problem was, though, he couldn't actually play.
AdvertisementGettyA late start
Because of their ongoing transfer ban, Barca weren't actually able to register Arda. Consequently, he didn't make his debut until January 6, 2016 – nearly six months after joining – meaning he was playing catch-up from the get-go. He unsurprisingly struggled for rhythm and there was talk of a transfer at the end of the season.
However, Luis Enrique wanted to persist with a player that he had pushed to sign and, in fairness, there was a period in his first full season of eligibility that Arda appeared as if he might actually manage to lock down a regular spot in the starting line-up – not least after he became just the sixth Barcelona player to score a hat-trick in the Champions League, against Borussia Monchengladbach in December 2016, before then hitting another treble later that month, in a Copa del Rey rout of Hercules.
It proved a false dawn, though.
Getty'Valverde made me feel insignificant'
Arda was hindered by injury in the second half of the season, and even when he returned to full fitness at the tail end of the campaign, he barely saw any game time, spending the entirety of Barca's final four Liga games, and the Copa del Rey final, sitting on the bench. There was just no room for him in the MSN forward line, while Ivan Rakitic and Andres Iniesta were the preferred offensive options alongside Sergio Busquets in midfield.
And a change of manager did not improve Arda's first-team prospects. On the contrary, his Barca career ended the moment Ernesto Valverde replaced Luis Enrique at the helm. Arda didn't see a single second of action under Valverde before desperately accepting a two-and-a-half-year loan deal with Istanbul Basaksehir in January 2018.
"Valverde made me feel slighted," Arda told . "He said he was going to play me but he didn't. He said he was going to give me a chance but he didn't. Everything was fine when Luis Enrique was there. We had won the league and the cup. Yes, sometimes things didn't go as planned in the Champions League. But, with Valverde, I felt insignificant and decided to leave. No one, including Valverde, has forced me out of Barcelona. I have made the decision to leave."
ENJOYED THIS STORY?
Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting
GettyArda's 'momentary mistake'
But it was a mistake, as Arda admitted himself. He picked up a Super Lig title during his spell at Basaksehir, but his time in Istanbul was blighted by controversy.
In May 2018, he was banned for 16 matches – later reduced to 10 on appeal – for insulting and pushing an assistant referee in the closing stages of a game against Sivasspor. And the reason for Arda's explosion of rage? A disputed throw-in.
Much worse was to follow, with Arda involved in a nightclub brawl later that year that left Turkish pop star Berkay Sahin with a broken nose. According to Berkay's wife, Ozlem Ada Sahin, Arda had made suggestive remarks to her and then attacked her husband.
An armed Arda later turned up at the hospital where Berkay was taken for surgery, begging for forgiveness and asking to be shot if the singer truly believed that he had been harassing his wife. Arda was ultimately given a suspended jail sentence of two years and eight months for firing a gun to cause panic, illegal possession of weapons and intentional injury.
He apologised for his "momentary mistake" and insisted that he had "learned lessons from these events."