Tolga Seyhan (born January 17, 1977) is a Turkish former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

. He was born in

Giresun Giresun () is a city in the Black Sea Region of northeastern Turkey, about west of the city of Trabzon. It is the seat of Giresun Province and Giresun District.Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

Club career

Tolga started out his career as a striker at Giresun Şafakspor. He continued at this position for a number of years and at several clubs including

Sivasspor Sivasspor Kulübü, known as Net Global Sivasspor due to sponsorship reasons, is a Turkish sports club based in Sivas. The primary department of the club is men's football. Formed in 1967, its football department has competed in Süper Lig since t ...

Düzcespor Düzcespor is a Turkish football club located in Düzce, Turkey. The club colors are red-navy blue. History The club was founded in 1967 and the first chairman was Atıf Bilginen. Former Fenerbahçe Chairman Aziz Yıldırım is the honorary c ...

and

Çanakkale Dardanelspor Çanakkale Dardanelspor Kulübü is a sports club located in Çanakkale, Turkey. History Çanakkale Dardanel SAŞ was founded as Çanakkalespor after merging Boğazspor, Türkgücü and Kalespor, which were amateur clubs of Çanakkale. The club' ...

. It was here that he was originally moved to defence, and he took it in his stride as he made the position of central defence his own. He soon joined

Malatyaspor Malatya Spor Kulübü is a Turkish sports club based in Malatya, mainly concentrated on football. History Prior to 1984 the club colors were yellow and black. They played for 11 seasons on the top-level of Turkish football. Their best result ...

and was extremely impressive as Malatyaspor defied expectations to remain in the

Turkish Süper Lig Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The wor ...

in their first season in the top flight, in the 2001/2002 season. The next season was even more impressive as a late season run enabled Malatyaspor to claim a

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

place for the next season. By this point, Tolga had made his first appearances for the Turkey national team and was being courted by many clubs, but remained with Malatyaspor for the beginning of the next season. When the Malatyaspor manager

Ziya Doğan Ziyaettin Dogan (born 1 January 1961 in Gümüşhane, Turkey) is a UEFA Pro Licensed Turkish football manager. Career Ziya Doğan has played at Beşiktaş (1979–1987), Ankaragücü (1987–1990), Kocaelispor (1990–1992) and Zeytinburnusp ...

left to join Trabzonspor in January 2004 he took Tolga with him. Tolga has since developed into one of the best defenders in Turkish football. Eighteen months later, Tolga was bought by the Ukrainian team

Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk () is a Ukrainian professional Association football, football club that was based in the city of Donetsk until 2014 when, due to the War in Donbas (2014–2022), War in Donbas, the club was forced to move to Lvi ...

. Tolga is a powerful big defender who uses his frame to stifle opponents in the air and on the ground. He is very quick for his size and despite playing in defence still impresses with the number of goals he scores, obviously due to his experience in playing for many years as a striker. Tolga obtained Ukrainian championship and is thinking about a comeback to Trabzonspor. In July 2006,

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club''), more commonly referred to as simply Galatasaray and familiarly as Cimbom, is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul including basketball, wheelchair ...

had made an agreement with Tolga to play for them, on loan for one season. In July 2010, he returned to where he was born, Giresun, for a one-year contract with Giresunspor, playing in Turkish 1st division "Bank Asya League". Giresunspor's board decided to give him the captain armband.

Honours

Club

Trabzonspor *

Turkish Cup The Turkish Cup () is a football cup competition in Turkish football, run by the Turkish Football Federation since 1962. During a brief sponsorship period with Fortis, its sponsored name was ''Fortis Türkiye Kupası''. Now Ziraat Bankası is ...

: 2003–04

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Seyhan, Tolga 1977 births Living people Turkish men's footballers Turkey men's international footballers Turkey men's B international footballers Turkish expatriate men's footballers Galatasaray S.K. footballers Çanakkale Dardanelspor footballers Malatyaspor footballers Kocaelispor footballers Trabzonspor footballers FC Shakhtar Donetsk players Gaziantepspor footballers Giresunspor footballers Hacettepe S.K. footballers Süper Lig players Ukrainian Premier League players Expatriate men's footballers in Ukraine Men's association football fullbacks Men's association football central defenders Turkish expatriate sportspeople in Ukraine Sportspeople from Giresun