Seyit Cem Ünsal

Seyit Cem Ünsal — Biography

Seyit Cem Ünsal is a former forward remembered for two firsts in Turkish football: he was the first Turkish player to play in the South Korean league, and he is also remembered as the first Turk to wear a Barcelona shirt. His career was spent largely at smaller and mid-table Turkish clubs, and his name resurfaced years later when Arda Turan joined Barcelona.

He began at his hometown club Kayserispor, making his professional debut against Galatasaray in 1994. After a season at Gençlerbirliği he was loaned to Erzurumspor, where he scored 6 goals in 28 games. In 1997 he moved to South Korea and the LG Cheetahs, scoring the club's first goal in the 1997 Korean FA Cup. In the summer of 1998 he joined Louis van Gaal's Barcelona at their Dutch pre-season camp: he started a friendly in the first eleven, came on at half-time in another and scored a hat-trick in twelve minutes, but was one of three players left out of the squad when the camp ended.

In August 1998 he joined Trabzonspor, where he struggled to win a place and went out on loan to Vanspor, Kocaelispor and Batman Petrolspor. During his military service he scored twice for the Turkish army team in a charity match. In his last years he wore the shirts of Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor, Altay and Şanlıurfa Belediyespor, and he stopped playing in 2006. When Arda Turan came to Barcelona he said he was proud to see a Turkish player in that shirt.