In collaboration with Goal, Voetbalzone regularly highlights young players who can go far in the future or who are already earning their spurs in (inter)national top football. This time the focus is on the seventeen-year-old creative midfielder Emre Demir, who will make the switch to Barcelona in the summer of 2022. Under Kayserispor’s shirt, the teenager has become the youngest ever goalscorer in Süper Lig history.
Since Demir made his Süper Lig debut as a 15-year-old, Turkish football fans have been waiting for the teenager’s real breakthrough. This finally happened as early as May 2019, with the expectation that the Kayserispor youngster would quickly become one of the greatest growth brilliances in European football. And while the talent hasn’t fully matured due to a number of factors, his potential has clearly not gone unnoticed elsewhere, namely at the Camp Nou.
Rumors circulated all summer and the confirmation came from Catalonia at the end of September. Barcelona pays two million euros for Demir, who can call himself a club member of, among others, Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay from the 2022/23 season. The seventeen-year-old Turk signed a long-term contract until mid-2027 and has a transfer clause of four hundred million euros. Such an amount may seem unrealistic for a talent who turns 18 in January 2022 and has only played 32 times for Kayserispor, but Demir is not only known as an exceptional talent, but also as someone who breaks records.
On his fourth appearance in the Turkish league, against Genclerbirligi in November 2019, Demir made an immediate statement by controlling a deflected ball in the penalty area and then catching goalkeeper Ertac Özbir in the short corner with his left foot. He did so just three minutes after coming off the bench as a substitute. By scoring at the age of 15 years and 299 days, he became the youngest ever player to do so in Süper Lig history. However, Demir’s memorable performance and upcoming move to one of the biggest clubs in the world comes as no surprise to those who watched him play football in his youth.
Demir started his football education in his hometown of Manisa, where he played for Kuvayi Milliyespor, when he was spotted in 2012 by the then board member of Kayserispor, Suleyman Hurma. “I watched a video of Emre when he was eight and I was very impressed,” Hurma told Sport Arena. “I immediately invited him and his family to Kayseri. He immediately hooked up with the youth players of Kayserispor and I saw that he had exceptional talent. He seemed like an older player made younger.”
The talent that Hurma talked about soon manifested itself in the form of goals. Demir scored 49 goals in 49 appearances for Kayserispor Under 14, then scored a further ten for the Under 16. The youngster skipped the Under 17 and immediately joined the first team. During this period he also got a taste of life in Barcelona for the first time, when he did an internship with the Catalans in 2017. Los Azulgrana could not capture Demir at the time, because he was only thirteen years old. “I went to La Masia, the youth academy in Barcelona, and stayed there for two weeks,” he told TRT Sporo, after his switch to Barcelona was confirmed. “I really liked the atmosphere there and made a promise to myself: I will come back here one day and wear this shirt. Now I am very happy that my dreams come true.”
How will Demir fit into the Barcelona team? His style of play certainly suggests he has La Masia DNA, even though he only spent two weeks there. The qualities of the creative midfielder, who can also play in all positions in the front line, are the first contact, dribbling, an excellent vision of the game and the ability to put himself in good scoring positions. Also because of his long hair and refined left foot, there are those who compare him to Lionel Messi in his younger years. For Demir himself, Yusuf Yazici, the number ten of Lille OSC and the national team of Turkey, is a player he watches and learns from.
There are, of course, areas to work on, especially his stamina and physical strength, which Demir will need if he is – as some believe – to become a pre-defense playmaker. At the moment, comparisons have already been made with Emil Forsberg of RB Leipzig, as well as with former Argentine professional footballer Pablo Aimar. If Demir comes to Spain next summer, he will initially join the Barcelona B selection, although it remains to be seen how long that will take. Last summer Yusuf Demir (no relation) came over from Rapid Wien to play for the reserve team, but from the moment his plane landed from Austria he was already in the first team.
However, Emre Demir is used to waiting as he has had to be patient with Kayserispor for the past two seasons. The battle against relegation had a negative impact on his development and under current coach Yalcin Kosukavak the teenager has only been on the field for four minutes so far this season. Instead, Demir mainly played for the Turkish youth teams. He made his debut for Turkey Under 19 on September 1. “One of my biggest goals is to play for the national team at the highest level,” he told Anadolu Agency. “I know I have to work hard for that and I believe I can achieve it.”
Demir will need that same faith when he joins Barcelona, but the signs are looking good. He has the potential to join the growing number of talented teenagers who have fallen on the burden of winning since Messi’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain. The fact that Demir looks a bit like the six-time Ballon d’Or winner may cause some extra pressure, but he is used to the expectations. The fact that the creative has already completed an internship with the Catalans at the age of thirteen and can be used in several positions can also work out to his advantage.
The teenager could not have made the move to Barcelona at a better time. Where for years Sergi Roberto was the last player to really break through from La Masia, since his appointment Ronald Koeman, partly due to the financial problems of the club, gave opportunities to growth brilliants such as Pedri and Ansu Fati. The most recent example is 17-year-old Gavi, who recently made an impression on his debut for Spain. If Demir has playing minutes in the first team of Barcelona next season, then a call for the highest national team cannot be missed for the Turkish youth international in the future.