Since January he has shown the qualities glimpsed 4 years ago. Class and competitive spirit on the pitch, the boy has grown
An extension achieved on the field. Torino has exercised the option to the extension of Emirhan Ilkhan’s contract until June 2027. The choice reflects the season experienced by the Turkish midfielder, who between the championship and the Italian Cup managed to show the qualities he glimpsed as a kid, but which for various reasons he had not yet managed to confirm with continuity.
The story
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When he arrived in Turin in the summer of 2022Ilkhan was just eighteen years old. He came purchased for 4.5 million from Besiktasthe club where he grew up. He defined himself as a box-to-box midfielder, signed a four-year contract with an option on 2027. He got off to a flying start, made his debut in the first match of the championship and in the fifth match against Lecce he was the starter. But then the spaces were reduced, he didn’t go beyond four appearances in Serie A and in January he was loaned to Sampdoria, where he put together another 8 matches. In the following season Ilkhan went on loan to Basaksehir and finally found continuity – 34 appearances, two goals and almost 1400 minutes between league and cup -, so Torino decided to bring him back to Italy. At twenty it seemed like the right time to take flight, but instead on September 7, 2024during a match at the Olimpico, the injury occurred. Ilkhan he injured the anterior cruciate of his left kneean injury that required an operation and effectively cost him the whole year: he managed to return to Philadelphia at the end of March, putting himself to work to be ready for the summer training camp.
Ready
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As in 2022, this year too Ilkhan immediately stood out, because already on 18 August in the Italian Cup against Modena he solved the match by creating the play for Vlasic’s goal. A week later he was promoted to point guard in the first match of the championship against Inter: a terrifying evening in which he was the only one to keep the compass, to try to create something to counter the Nerazzurri storm. From that moment on, however, he ended up on the bench. If we exclude a few snippets of the match against Cremonese and Cagliari, in 2025 Ilkhan no longer saw the pitch in Serie A, because in his role the starter was Asllani and Ilic was used instead as assistant. By 2026 the music has changed and Turkish has started to have more space. His matches have never been dull. Many performances were of a high level, such as the one for the 3-0 in Verona, or in the 2-2 against Fiorentina, or even for the triumph in the round of 16 of the Italian Cup in Rome, when he scored the decisive goal in the 3-2 against the Giallorossi. In others he had some difficulties – in Como, or in the Genoa-Turin match in which he was sent off -, but he always showed charisma and desire to fight, even and above all against opponents bigger than him. Evidence that brought it back at the center of the Turkish Under 21 national team: he was in fact called up for the friendly match against Kosovo on 3 June in Istanbul. The relaunch season was completely successful.
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