Okan Aydın

Okan Aydın — Biography

Okan Aydın is a German-born forward who came through the Bayer 04 Leverkusen academy, played in the Bundesliga and then in Turkey, China, Austria and Hungary. As a youth he took third place at the 2011 FIFA U-17 World Cup with Germany and silver at the 2013 Mediterranean Games with Turkey.

He began at SV 07 Setterich and entered Leverkusen's academy at seven. His U-17 side reached the final and lost to Eintracht Frankfurt; the next season he scored 19 goals in 24 matches, and in 2011-12 he scored 13 in 23 for the U-19s. On October 20, 2012, he made his Bundesliga debut against Mainz 05, replacing Simon Rolfes.

In 2013 he transferred to Eskişehirspor, and in 2014 he returned to Germany, where he scored 8 goals in 82 league matches for Rot-Weiß Erfurt. He then moved to Jiangxi Liansheng in China's League One (September 2020), TSV Hartberg in the Austrian Bundesliga (January 2022), Debrecen in Hungary (February 2023) and Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz (February 2024), and afterwards played for ASKÖ Oedt in Austria.

He played for Germany's U-16 and U-17 sides; at the 2011 European U-17 Championship, where Germany finished second, he scored in the final against the Netherlands, and at the World Cup he scored twice in the 4-3 third-place win over Brazil to become the team's second-highest scorer. He later played for Turkey's U-19s.