Lefter Küçükandonyadis
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Lefter Küçükandonyadis (Greek: Λευτέρης Αντωνιάδης Lefteris Antoniadis), born 1925 in Istanbul, is a legendary football player and well recognised as one of the greatest footballers to play for Turkey. At the height of his career in the 1950s, he was regarded as one of the best players in the world.
Born as the son of a fisherman of Greek descent and a Turkish mother, he grew up with ten other brothers and sisters. He started his footballing career with Taksimspor, a club based in Istanbul. Küçükandonyadis transferred to Fenerbahçe in 1947, achieving instant success. He was the first Turkish footballer to play abroad, playing during 1951-1953 for ACF Fiorentina in Italy and OGC Nice in France. Returning to Fenerbahçe, he won two Istanbul League and later, after the start of the Turkish national league, three Turkish League (1959, 1961 and 1964) championship titles. In the season 1953-1954, he was the top scorer in the Turkish league. Küçükandonyadis scored in all a total of 423 goals in 615 games for Fenerbahçe.
He played 50 times for the Turkish national football team, 9 of them as the captain. He also played at the 1954 World Cup netting in 2 goals, one against West-Germany and one against South-Korea. He was selected for the World XI team that same year. He scored 20 goals for his national team and was the top scorer for Turkey till overtaken by Hakan Şükür. He was the first Turkish football player to receive the "Golden Honor medal" from the Turkish Football Federation.
After his retirement as active footballer in 1963, Küçükandonyadis played and coached Egaleo FC in Greece and Johannesburg in South Africa. He later returned to Turkey and coached the clubs Samsunspor, Orduspor, Mersin Idmanyurdu and Boluspor.
A center forward, he was called the “professor” (Turkish: “ordinaryus”) for his assured finishing. In popular imagination, he is said to have never missed a penalty. A street on the island Büyükada in Istanbul, the largest one of the Princes' Islands, where he lives is named after him.
There is a very well known chant sung by Fenerbahçe supporters, 'Ver Leftere Yazsin Deftere', which means approximately, 'Give the ball to Lefter and he'll have you make an entry in the scoring charts'.
Lefter was a part of the Turkey squad that had beaten the magical squad of Hungary with Ferenc Puskás in the late 50's. He netted in 2 goals alongside with teammate Meting Oktay to win 3-1. After the match the Hungarian admitted that they lost against a good footballing side, if they had played like this at the World Cup a few years earlier they could have finished in the top 4 of the tournament. [citation needed]
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