Erencan Yardımcı

Erencan Yardımcı made his professional bow far earlier than most: on loan from nobody, still on Galatasaray's books, he stepped out for the Champions League against Club Brugge in November 2019, without ever getting a single Süper Lig appearance for the club that developed him. It is an unusual line on a CV — a European debut for a side he never played league football for — and it says something about how his career has moved since: fast, sideways, and mostly through loan spells.

Galatasaray sold him to Eyüpspor in the winter of 2021, and it was from Eyüpspor's books that Yardımcı spent much of the following seasons out on loan, first at Alanyaspor, then at Pendikspor. Hoffenheim signed him from Eyüpspor in August 2024 for a reported €4 million, but rather than easing him straight into the Bundesliga, the German club sent him out again immediately, to Sturm Graz in Austria. That loan produced the clearest success of his career so far: an Austrian Bundesliga title with Sturm Graz. It was cut short in January 2025, and Yardımcı returned to Hoffenheim to play out the second half of the season under Christian Ilzer.

At youth international level, Yardımcı has been a regular scorer for Turkey, capped from under-17 through to under-21, and he has yet to be called into the senior national side.