Fortuna Sittard caused a stunt on the transfer market on Tuesday by attracting Burak Yilmaz. The Turkish top striker signs a five-year contract in Sittard, of which two seasons as a player.
The 36-year-old Yilmaz played for the Turkish top clubs Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray and last year, with sixteen league goals, had a large share in the French national title of Lille OSC. He was allowed to leave the club on a free transfer this summer after his contract had expired.
Yilmaz played 77 caps for the Turkish national team, in which he scored 31 times. He made three of them last year in the World Cup qualifier against the Orange, which Turkey won 4-2. In the qualification for the European Championship 2016, he scored in both Turkey and Amsterdam against the Netherlands.
It is not exactly clear how Fortuna Sittard ended up with Yilmaz. The Eredivisie club has had a Turkish owner and chairman with Isitan Gün since 2016. For Yilmaz it is important that Fortuna has a plan for him in the longer term. It is the intention that after two seasons at Fortuna, he will take the first steps in a coaching career.
Yilmaz scored 255 goals in club career
Yilmaz made his professional debut twenty years ago with the Turkish club Antalyaspor, after which he played for a whole series of clubs in Turkey: Besiktas, Manisaspor, Fenerbahçe, Eskisehirspor, Trabzonspor and Galatasaray.
In 2016, Yilmaz moved to a foreign club for the first time: he made the switch to the Chinese club Beijing Guoan for a transfer fee of 8 million euros. After more than a year, he returned to Trabzonspor and via Besiktas he ended up at Lille OSC in 2020.
At the French club, Yilmaz turned out to be a direct hit: in his debut year he led ‘Les Dogues’ to the first national title in ten years with sixteen league goals. He could not repeat that success last season: Yilmaz scored only four times and was allowed to leave Lille for free.
Yilmaz scored no less than 255 times in 520 games in his twenty-year career. He is second on the all-time top scorers list with the Turkish national team with 31 goals. Only Hakan Sükür (51 goals) scored more often in the Turkish shirt.