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Tolgay Ozbey, the Australian Turkish striker, made his debut in Indian football with the Kolkata giants Kingfisher East Bengal in 2010-11 season. He came from Blacktown city FC, a club in the NSW Premier League. He was a prolific goal scorer in the NSW Premier league and was voted the player of the year in 2009-10. He scored 23 goals in 20 appearances for Blacktown city F.C. He has also played for A-League side Sydney F.C.
Ozbey tasted success as soon as he reached India. He performed superbly in his debut season for the Kolkata giants and in no time became the fan favourite. He spent two seasons with Kingfisher East Bengal and scored 35 goals in 48 appearances. He was also the top scorer for his team in both the seasons. His team won 5 trophies in this tenure. Kolkata league-2, IFA shield-1, Federation cup-1 and Super cup-1. These two seasons made him one of the most in-demand footballers in India.
At the end of the 2011-12 season, arch rivals Mohun Bagan successfully signed the striker for a sum of 3.3 crore for the upcoming two seasons. Mohun Bagan officials won a battle by signing the Australian from their city rivals. They were hopeful that Tolgay would perform according to his reputation in the green and maroon outfit. As the season progressed, Tolgay seemed to have lost all his colours. He got injured at the beginning of the season during his team’s Federation cup journey. Eventually Mohun Bagan was knocked out off the tournament from the group stage. In the I-league, Tolgay showed no improvement as he yet again suffered from knee injury and was out for almost 2 months.
The Premier League fans can compare Ozbey to the Spanish striker Fernando Torres, nicknamed El Nino. Torres joined EPL giants Chelsea F.C in 2011-12. He was considered to be one of the best strikers in the world at that time, but now he is just a shadow of what he was before. Torres was transferred to Chelsea for 50 million pounds from Liverpool. The signing proved to be a disaster for the London side as he managed to score very few goals. Eventually Torres lost his place in the National team too.
Torres was a superstar during his early days in the Premier League when he scored 65 goals from 102 appearances for Liverpool. Tolgay also had a dream debut in I-league with Kingfisher East Bengal. Both the strikers are now a shadow of what they were in their pomp. Another similarity which pops up is, both players were booed by their fans. Recently, the Australian recruit had to hear chants of “GO BACK TOLGAY” from the Mohun Bagan fans as he has failed to perform this season. El Nino too regularly gets booed by his own fans. Torres has maintained the reputation of being the most trolled footballer. The much hyped move of Tolgay from East Bengal to Mohun Bagan has also proved to be a joke among the Indian football fans.
Football fans will surely look forward to whether these two forwards can actually find their goal scoring boots in the upcoming seasons. Mohun Bagan fans will be eagerly waiting for their Australian signing to perform next season and bring them glory.
