‘In Dutch we say, ‘laten lukken,’ ” Ferdi Kadioglu says. The interview is almost over and the Brighton & Hove Albion player, kindly posing for a few portraits, is explaining the meaning behind his goal celebration — a letter L, formed with thumb and forefinger, on each hand.
Laten Lukken. “In English it means, ‘Make it work, make it happen,’ ” Kadioglu says. After learning a little more about the 26-year-old’s journey to the Premier League over the previous half an hour, the phrase suddenly feels quite apt.
Kadioglu, as you may recall, joined Brighton from Fenerbahce for £25million in August 2024 after a series of thrilling, all-action, breakout-star performances for Turkey — the nation of his father’s birth — during Euro 2024.
After much of his first season in Sussex was wrecked by injury, however, only now are Brighton supporters beginning to fully appreciate the value of Kadioglu’s skillset to their team.
Is there is a more versatile, uber-dependable, tenacious player in the Premier League right now? Left back, right back, inverted full back, left midfield, right midfield, winger — Kadioglu plays them all with remarkable poise and, to borrow his own mantra, he just makes it work.
According to Transfermarkt, the only two positions Kadioglu has not played in since becoming NEC Nijmegen’s youngest Eredivisie player in August 2016, aged 16 years and 326 days, are striker and goalkeeper. “I’m not that tall, so [playing in goal] is going to be hard,” he says, with a smile.
There was something wonderfully incongruous about a predominantly right-footed left back emerging as one of the most exciting players at the Euros, as part of the tournament’s most vibrant teams. This season, Kadioglu has finally been able to bring all that buccaneering energy and drive to Fabian Hürzeler’s side in the Premier League — usually from left back, but equally so from wherever he has been asked to play.
Does he have a preference? “In recent years, I played my most games as a left back, so I think that became my favourite position at the moment,” Kadioglu says. “In the [NEC] academy I was always a midfielder, No10, No8, No6. When I started to make my debut in the Netherlands, I played as a midfielder, but sometimes they played me on the right or left wing as well.
“Then I moved to Turkey, played more on the wings, a few games as a midfielder. And then there was a coach, Vitor Pereira — he was Wolverhampton [Wanderers] — and he played with back three, with wingbacks. He started to put me as a wingback.”
Pereira was one of ten Fenerbahce managers — beginning with Phillip Cocu and ending with José Mourinho — during Kadioglu’s six years with the club.
Kadioglu played for Fenerbahce for six years under a number of different managers
AHMET BOLAT/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
“For [Mourinho], there’s just one thing, and that’s winning,” Kadioglu says. “It doesn’t matter how you win. Sometimes it’s ugly, sometimes it’s nice. At the end of the game, three points are the most important. That was his main thing.”
Kadioglu was born in Arnhem, near the border with Germany, and was eligible to play for the Netherlands, Turkey and Canada. His father, Feyzullah, a printer, emigrated from Turkey with his parents at the age of seven. Kadioglu’s mother, Diane, was born in Canada but her family returned to Arnhem when she was two.
“They met in Turkey though,” Kadioglu says. “My father was there for the summer, to work in watersports. She was there on holiday. They met there on the beach. But they both lived in the Netherlands, in the same city.”
Feyzullah spent countless hours with Kadioglu and a football, honing his son’s skills at their local park. The pair would bring a portable DVD player and watch their Coerver Coaching DVD, emulating the ball-mastery skills of the renowned youth coach, Wiel Coerver.
Kadioglu says his career was transformed by Periera’s decision to use him as a wing back
ANDY HOOPER FOR THE TIMES
Kadioglu, though, credits his mother for his athletic genes: she was a professional ballerina who travelled the world performing and later teaching with the contemporary dance company, Introdans. Kadioglu never followed her to the barre, he says, but he was a keen gymnast, practised judo and was also a talented tennis player.
“I was really good at tennis but I had to make a decision: football or tennis,” Kadioglu says. “There was training three or four times a week with football, and tennis was the same, so I couldn’t mix it anymore. But I think I made the right decision.”
There have been moments, though, where Kadioglu’s faith wavered. His debut season for NEC ended in relegation from the Eredivisie. Nineteen goal contributions from an attacking midfield position the following season persuaded Cocu to bring an 18-year-old Kadioglu to Fenerbahce. The former PSV Eindhoven manager was sacked after only four months, though, and a 13-minute cameo in the Turkish Cup was the grand sum of Kadioglu’s game time during his first season in Istanbul.
Kadioglu was also a talented tennis player in his youth
Periera’s plan, in 2021-22, to use him as a wing back changed everything. “He had a good plan for me,” says Kadioglu, who believes his “energy on the pitch” is his greatest strength. “It’s not that he just put me there because there were no other players. I trusted in his plans and it worked out well. You see now in almost all teams now, the full backs are quite important for the team.”
Kadioglu is one of five Netherlands-born players in Brighton’s squad and the Dutch contingent, along with the Belgium defender Maxim De Cuyper, can usually be found playing cards together — Trumps being their game of choice — on away trips.
Kadioglu and his wife, Sera, tied the knot in August and welcomed their first child, Felicia, in October.
The chance to help Turkey reach their first World Cup since 2002 is looming and there is huge pressure on Vincenzo Montella’s side to end that barren spell in the upcoming play-offs.
Kadioglu is hopeful Turkey will come through the play-offs to reach the World Cup
DAN MULLAN/GETTY IMAGES
Win their semi-final against Romania on March 26 and then a final against either Slovakia or Kosovo, and they will join a group featuring the co-hosts, USA, Australia and Paraguay.
In the meantime, though, Kadioglu is focused on arresting a poor run, in which Brighton have managed only one win from their past ten league games, slipping to 12th. European football, Kadioglu says, is still the aim.
“As long as the quality of play is good, the points will come,” says Kadioglu, whose team host Everton at the Amex on Saturday. “We have trust in that. Everything is so close. If you win two or three times in a row, it can be totally different.
“I really like to play for [Hürzeler]. He has some good ideas about how to play. Sometimes you need a bit of luck, and the last games luck was not on our side.”