Cengiz Ünder, Turkey's' Little Prince 'who learns with Sampaoli

Turkish winger Cengiz Ünder, who has been confirmed at Marseille as one of the key pieces for Jorge Sampaoli, is now hoping to help his team overcome the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup playoff, on Thursday in Porto against Portugal.

In the Turkish national team, Burak Yilmaz (Lille) is the “kral”, the king, but Ünder is a candidate for his succession and the 'Little Prince' for a fan who dreams of a new World Cup participation, twenty years after the last one in 2002. Then Cengiz was barely 5 years old.

The mission is difficult for Turkey, since in addition to having to overcome Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal as a visitor, he would then have to win an eventual final of the repechage, against the European champion Italy or North Macedonia.

Turkey is therefore not a favorite in that repechage, but Ünder and his companions want to assert the 'surprise effect'.

With the jersey of his national team, Ünder has played 36 matches and scored 11 goals. He is the undisputed starter at the age of 24 and in Turkey's last four matches he has scored two goals and gave three assists.

At Olympique de Marseille, where he was loaned for this season by Roma after a failed passage through Leicester, he has also confirmed himself as a decisive player. In a team that often has trouble materializing their chances, they have scored 11 goals and given three assists, taking into account all the competitions.

In the phases of the season in which Marseille did not shine in attack, his coach Sampaoli regularly cited him, along with Dimitri Payet and Arkadiusz Milik, among “those with the most goals” on his legs.

- Mosaic in his honor -

“He has always had those qualities, but without the continuity that Marseille has given him,” the Argentine coach says about him.

“He plays as a winger but goes to the goal, he knows how to attack in the area and can always be decisive. We work with 'Cengo' (his nickname) to ensure that it maintains this continuity,” adds the former Argentina and Chile coach, who considers him “a fundamental player” in his Marseille project.

In January, his goal for victory in Bordeaux, where Marseille had not won in 44 years, gave Ünder a place in the history of the Provencal club. The fans dedicated a mosaic to him in the next match against Lille, where he scored again.

“I will never forget the choreography I saw in the stands when I jumped onto the pitch before the game. Marseille is now my family and I will continue to fight for my family until the last minute,” said the Turkish player on Twitter.

In October, when Marseille hosted Galatasaray in the Europa League, this former Istanbul player Basaksehir confided how happy he was with the step taken this season for his personal growth and as a player: “Moving from Rome to Marseille is perhaps one of the best decisions I have ever made.”

That same day, perhaps in order not to generate controversy in his native country, he refused to say which Turkish club was his favorite.

Galatasaray? Besiktas? Fenerbahce? The Turkish club that is in the heart of Ünder is for now a great mystery but what is clear is its passion for the Turkish national team and its desire to lead it to Qatar-2022.

stt/dr