Roma ended up beating Manchester City in the race for the Turkey international wonder kid Cengiz Under over the summer.
A source close to Under revealed to Turkish-football just how close City got to signing the 20-year-old.
The Citizens made a €9 million upfront bid promising an additional €3 million in bonuses.
The Citizens planned to sign Under as an investment, similar to their policy with Enes Unal and loan him out to Freiburg.
The Premier League giants missed out on Under at the last minute when Roma swooped in with a €13 million offer and promises of first-team football.
We examine whether Under made the right choice.
So who is Cengiz Under?
Under first made a name for himself at Altinordu, joining the Izmir based outfit aged 15 – along with former youth academy coordinator, Seyit Mehmet Ozcan who took over as president – rising through the youth ranks of a club that could potentially revolutionize Turkish football.
For a country of 80 million people with the youngest population in Europe, Turkey has not produced.
The best Turkish players over recent years were not even born in the country.
In fact the German Turkish population which numbers an estimated four million has far outperformed mainland Turkey.
The likes of Hakan Calhanoglu, Mesut Ozil, Hamit Altintop, Ilkay Gundogan, Emre Can and co are all ethnic Turks but all were born and raised in Germany.
Turkish clubs have simply neglected youth development for decades but Altinordu plan to pioneer change.
The Izmir side have invested heavily in building a state of the art academy with acres of land across the Aegean region.
Altinordu’s utopian goal is to create a first team comprised entirely of in house players. The club are still at an early stage in the project but have already started churning out some of the hottest talent in Turkey.
The club have already started exporting talent. Twenty-year old centre-back Caglar Soyuncu was snapped up by Bundesliga outfit Freiburg last summer while Under joined Basaksehir on a £600,000 move – prior to the Roma transfer.
Under helped the Istanbul minnows pull off a miracle run in the Super Lig last season pushing eventual champions Besiktas to the wire and reaching the Turkish Cup final.
The left-footed winger can play off either flank or through the centre. He possesses explosive acceleration and pace, is a speedy dribbler, has a lethal shot and works hard. The Turkey international is able to assist quick transitions from defence to atack and causes full-backs who like to push forwards all sorts of problems on the break.
Under scored nine times and provided seven assists in 43 appearances for Basaksehir last season included big goals in big games against the likes of Besiktas and Fenerbahce.
Under was singled out by UEFA last season and described as being a wonder-kid.
The rising star has also managed to earn himself as place in the Turkish national team and repaid head coach Fatih Terim with a goal on his official debut against Moldova.
The Ündertaker
Under took a while to settle in. The rising star joined Roma on his 20th birthday and went to live abroad for the first time for the first time. The Turkey international went through teething pains. He did not know Italian, he moved to a new city with no friends or family, he described the experience as ‘true loneliness’.
“It was really tough. I really felt alone for the first time, really alone. It was the first time I experienced real loneliness,” Under told me in an interview for the Guardian last November.
The youngster only started only four Serie A games before the turn of the year. There was even talk of him leaving on loan in January.
Under and his team never entertained the thought of leaving. Neither did Roma who showed patience and worked with him closely behind the scenes.
Euebio Di Francesco decided to take a risk on Under after abandoning his 4-3-3 setup in favor of a 4-2-3-1.
The gamble paid off. Under has started Roma’s last six games, scoring five times and providing an assist.
The youngster has scored in his last four consecutive games and netted on his Champions League debut last week.
Under became the youngster Turkish international to score in the competition and the second youngest Roma player to do so.
Fans are calling him ‘Nuovo Salah’ – Italian for the new Mohamed Salah.
Under was, of course, brought in to replace Salah.
Turkish-Football quoted the winger as saying: “They signed me as Salah’s replacement so I am here to play. I could not believe the transfer happened so quickly.
“We were in other talks with Man City, then I got a call from my agent who said ‘the Roma deal is done’, I couldn’t sleep that night.”
Under has really started to make a name for himself as a star name for Roma.
Would he have got the same opportunities at City?
Pep Guardiola has given youngsters a chance, just look at 20-year-old Gabriel Jesus for example.
However, Under would have had to get an exemption from the FA for being an exceptional talent for a work permit – by no means a guarantee.
Even if he jumped that hurdle, there was simply too much competition in his position to realistically break into the first-team at City.
Under joined Roma as a player the club required. The Giallorossi had to replace Salah after his move to Liverpool. The timing was perfect. The stars aligned. In hindsight, it is looking like he made the right choice.
