Why Hakan Calhanoglu was underrated for so long and why he is elite now

Inter Milan have one of the most enviable midfields in European football, and this group of players have brought the Nerazzurri a great deal of success under manager Simone Inzaghi.

Just two seasons ago, Inter were in the Champions League Final against the mighty Manchester City and the most expensive squad ever made, and if it weren’t for some finishing woes, Inter may have added the Champions League trophy to the Coppa Italia that year.

Inter’s excellence in the second half of the 2023/24 season was a sign of things to come, as the most overlooked of the powerhouse clubs in Italy won the Scudetto for a second time in four seasons.

Lautaro Martinez received Ballon d’Or love and new signings Yann Sommer and Marcus Thuram were both tremendous, but Hakan Calhanoglu stole a lot of hearts with 13 goals from midfield in another season of wizardry from the Turkish international.

In truth, Calhanoglu has been a top-class player for a very, very long time – more than a decade, to be precise. Let’s take a closer look at Calhanoglu’s career and why he has been underrated for so long.

An immediate Bundesliga success story

Hakan Calhanoglu received his first shot in the top flight for Hamburg, previously an unkillable “dinosaur” in the Bundesliga before their relegation in 2018 – and subsequent inability to get back to the big leagues ever since.

One of the last great gems of Hamburg, which includes the more touted Son Heung-min and Juventus rival Filip Kostic, Calhanoglu spent just one season in Germany’s biggest port city.

However, he sure made it count, dazzling as a 19-year-old on a team that desperately needed his 13 goals and 4 assists to stay afloat in 16th. The only other Hamburg player who scored more goals than him that season was 21-year-old striker Pierre-Michel Lasogga.

Calhanoglu was an excellent playmaker, even though he didn’t get a chance to show it with Lasogga being the only other player to remotely carry a goal threat. He even carried out his defensive duties well, too, with three combined tackles and interceptions per game.

Of course, if anyone remembers Calhanoglu for one thing from his one season in Hamburg, then it is his outrageous knuckleball free kick from half-field that had Roman Weidenfeller tied up in a knot and Jurgen Klopp smirking in disbelief at the icing on the cake of a 3-0 Hamburg blowout over Dortmund.

With nearly six million views on YouTube, the teenage Calhanoglu’s moment of magic against one of the Bundesliga’s most successful clubs is one of the most iconic goals of the last 25 years in the Bundesliga and legitimately one of the greatest free kicks of all time.

Forced to raise funds after buying Lasogga, Hamburg sold Calhanoglu to a rising power in the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen, for a fee of around 15 million euros.

At the time, it was seen as a bizarre move, because Calhanoglu could have went to a bigger club for more money. He even criticized Hamburg’s sporting director for stabbing him in the back for not facilitating a bigger move earlier and for basically forcing Calhanoglu to push himself out of the club, leading to an incident in which his car was vandalized.

Calhanoglu was a young, talented, and ambitious player, but, in a way, things didn’t work out badly for him, because Leverkusen were a strong club playing good football at that time – just as they are now.

While at Leverkusen, Calhanoglu teamed up with some much more regarded players like Bundesliga icon Karim Bellarabi, future Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno, and the famous Javier Hernandez.

But in retrospect, Calhanoglu’s most talented teammate was another player whose best years were ahead of him, Son Heung-min. Son actually left Hamburg the year before Calhanoglu joined from Karlsruher, scoring 12 goals in a season before notching double-digit goals in two for Leverkusen.

Unfortunately, the world only got to see Calhanoglu and Son play together for one full season in 2014/15, as the South Korean star surprised everyone on the team by promptly moving to Tottenham – a move that Calhanoglu criticized out of hurt.

Although Son still hasn’t won any major silverware in London, the transfer did work out for him, as, to this day, he is one of the best forwards in the world and a very well-known footballer.

Calhanoglu was a consistently solid player for Leverkusen, but he never actually did better than the 8 goals and 6 assists he registered in his first season. Primarily an attacking midfielder and playmaker,

Although Calhanoglu worked hard for the team in defense and regularly created more than two chances per game, it just felt like he was being capped by the Bundesliga and Leverkusen.

Elite playmaking in Serie A for Milan

Hakan Calhanoglu needed to spread his wings elsewhere, and the opportunity for a change came in 2017 when AC Milan decided to spend over 20 million euros on the Turkish playmaker.

Milan had high hopes for him, to the extent that they gave him their No. 10 kit, which is one of the most prestigious shirts in world football. Clarence Seedorf, Ruud Gullit, and Rui Costa all wore it in the past.

And Calhanoglu did it proud. When he arrived at Milan, he was still only 23 despite having four solid seasons of top-flight football under his belt. By the time he left Milan at the age of 27, he was a more refined player and one of the best playmakers in the world.

It didn’t feel like Calhanoglu received the respect of an elite playmaker though. Even though he had nine assists in his final two seasons with the Rossoneri, averaging three key passes per game, Calhanoglu wasn’t getting much respect.

Despite helping Milan finish second and qualify for the Champions League after years of Europa League football, Calhanoglu still never won an individual award in his four seasons with the club.

Finally in the spotlight for rivals Inter

Then, Calhanoglu made one of the most unpopular transfers in the recent history of Serie A, leaving second-placed AC Milan for Scudetto winners Inter Milan, switching sides of one of the biggest rivalries in world football.

Inter had just won the Serie A title ahead of Juventus, breaking up a streak of nine straight title victories – and Juve have not won the Italian top flight since the 2019/20 season.

Calhanoglu added insult to injury by leaving the Rossoneri for the Nerazzurri for free, and if that weren’t bad enough, he left in his prime at the age of 27 and became an even better player for Inter than he was for Milan.

With Inter, Calhanoglu finally started racking up some individual awards, steadily improving his craft before really taking off as a deep-lying playmaker and full-time defensive midfielder for Inzaghi.

The Inter coach saw that he had a special midfield with wingbacks Federico Dimarco and Denzel Dumfries bombing up the pitch, Nicolo Barella terrorizing everyone, and Henrik Mkhitaryan doing the little things a veteran should.

Meanwhile, Calhanoglu brought some of the best free kick skills in world football, a composed ability to see the whole pitch from deep, a crazy killer ball into the penalty area, and the threat of scoring from anywhere.

In his first season with Inter, Calhanoglu registered 7 goals with 12 assists. And last season, the Turkish star set another career high with 13 goals, becoming the best midfielder in Serie A.

Now 30 years old, Calhanoglu is at his absolute peak as a deep-lying playmaker and is legitimately one of the best players in the world. He averages more than two tackles per games, creates chances, and scores bangers with ease for a team that won Serie A by nearly 20 points over rivals Milan.

It’s been a long road to get here, from top Bundesliga prospect to “chosen one” as the Milan 10, and now to the unsung superstar of one of the top teams in European football with Inter.

Maybe, just maybe, all these years later, Hakan Calhanoglu can be considered a truly world-class midfielder and someone who has grown into his own after years of being accused of immature and an elite talent who was closer to “good” than “among the best”.