İlhan Fakılı's Turkey Call-Up: The Clermont Coach Reveals a Player Who Did Not Grow Up on Praise

İlhan Fakılı's Turkey Call-Up: The Clermont Coach Reveals a Player Who Did Not Grow Up on Praise I have a habit of staying behind after every training session. Not to take more notes, but to listen. Football tells its clearest stories in the moments when nobody is left on the pitch. "The empty stands never stop talking to me." Once, on a short field trip about youth academies, I stopped in a small city in central France and watched a group of young players shooting at goal while the floodlights were already on. "Beautiful football is an idea; I tell the story of the cracks." Among those young players were names that a few years later would make all of Europe take notice. One such story is unfolding around İlhan Fakılı, the young winger of Beşiktaş who has just been called up to the Turkish national team. The news spread fast. But what caught my attention was not the headline, but the reaction of a man far from the media hub of Istanbul: Gregory Proment, İlhan's former coach at Clermont. He learned of the news late, and when he spoke, Proment described a journey that was never easy. Proment is 47 years old, a French coach. He was the man who gave İlhan his professional debut during the period when both were at Clermont. In football, the relationship between a coach and a player he promoted to the first team is a special one. It is not just work. It is a professional memory, in which the teacher remembers exactly how his student stumbled in those first sessions, and how the boy responded after each mistake. İlhan's call-up to the Turkish national team is the result of a chain of events. After leaving Clermont, the player moved to Beşiktaş, one of the biggest clubs in Turkey, where he quickly impressed with his goalscoring. That is the key context: at a club whose attack is considered very strong, a young newcomer must fight for every minute. The fact that he made an impression in such a context is precisely why he caught the national team's eye. The story here is not merely a call-up. It is the story of a winger who carries both technique and intelligence, in a Turkish football that is trying to rejuvenate its squad. The first thing Proment said was that he did not know his former player had been called up, and he described it as wonderful news. But the way he interpreted it is more noteworthy. According to him, İlhan deserves this place, and will soon become one of the national team's key figures. That is a strong statement. My experience of watching training sessions tells me coaches are usually very cautious when assessing former players in front of the press. When they say "he will become a key figure," they usually base it on something specific the public cannot see. Proment recalled that when İlhan made his first-team debut, he immediately recognised the talent. Despite being very young, the player already possessed remarkable technique and dribbling ability. This is important: for a winger, dribbling is a foundational skill. But good dribbling has never been enough to become a great player. Modern football is full of good dribblers who cannot convert it into the final product: goals and assists. This is the part of the story Proment described in most detail. He said that during their time at Clermont, the coaching staff designed special drills for İlhan to improve his finishing. Early on, the player was weak in finishing inside the box and in his decision-making and choice-making moments on the pitch. This is a very familiar description of a young winger: lots of energy, lots of actions, but lacking composure and accuracy in front of goal. What is worth noting is the coaching staff's response to those limitations. They did not simply wait for time to pass. They coached specifically. Proment revealed they focused especially on finishing drills in front of goal. Over time, the quality of İlhan's decisions and choices improved noticeably. And Proment added that this is why the player's strong scoring start at Beşiktaş did not surprise him at all. This is the point I want to pause on. In football, we often attribute a young player's breakthrough to "innate talent" or to some moment of inspiration. But İlhan's story, as told by the man who directly coached him, is a story of repeated drills. The "beautiful" part the audience sees on the pitch is built from the "dry" part nobody sees in training. That is why I keep my habit of staying behind after sessions. Proment also answered the question about İlhan's best position on the pitch. For a young winger, this is an important question, because position determines how a player maximises strengths and hides weaknesses. According to Proment, İlhan is an intelligent player who can adapt easily to different systems. But he made clear that to achieve the highest output, the player should play on the left wing, close to the touchline, in the 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 shapes. This is a tactical observation worth analysing. In modern football, the left wing is usually reserved for inverted wingers, meaning a right-footed player on the left so he can cut inside and shoot with his stronger foot. But Proment emphasised the position "close to the touchline." This suggests a different player profile: a classic winger who creates space by driving down the flank, stretching the opponent's defensive line, then creating chances for teammates or attacking the box himself. This is a point worth noting about how we read tactics. The fact that a player can play in several systems does not mean he should play in every position equally. Versatility is an asset, but output is another story. Proment made clear that İlhan can adapt, but performs best in one specific zone: the left wing, near the touchline. He also said İlhan has already adapted to Vincenzo Italiano's system, the Beşiktaş coach, and will not have any problems thanks to his tactical intelligence. This is an important detail for anyone following Turkish football: reading the game and adapting to the coach's demands is an essential part of a young player's profile at a big club. Regarding the Beşiktaş attack, Proment assessed the structure as very effective. He said İlhan is just as productive as his teammates. According to him, as they play together more, the attacking players will feed each other and continue to find goals thanks to one another. Here there is a noteworthy football logic: in a quality attack, each individual's quality is amplified by collective understanding. A great player alone can create a moment, but a cohesive attack can create a system. This leads to the question of İlhan's place in that structure. If he plays on the left wing near the touchline as Proment suggested, his role may lean toward creating space and imposing pace, while other attackers handle the finishing. However, with a strong scoring start at Beşiktaş, the player clearly can also directly threaten goal. Finally, Proment spoke about İlhan's potential and argued that leading European clubs could soon take notice of him. He said the player still has great room to grow, and that Beşiktaş is of course a big club, but with this form, many leading European clubs will track him very soon. But I want to raise a counter-question here, because football is not only about praise. A former coach's praise has value, but it must be placed in context. The difference between a player with potential and a player who truly reaches the top lies in the gap between "could" and "did." Many young players have been highly rated by coaches, expected to attract big clubs, and then stopped. "Ideals break, but I still sit and write through the debris." And in that debris, most are talents who never learned to turn skill into consistent output. The biggest blind spot here relates to the pressure of a national-team call-up. Being called up is a career peak, but also a test. At that level, ball-handling time is shorter, space is tighter, and every mistake is magnified. A young winger, even with technique and pace, can struggle to adapt to the reading speed of the international game. The story of an Asian team at a recent World Cup, where I once idealised tactics, taught me that in decisive moments, composure and character often matter more than skill. There is also a story about environment here. Moving from Clermont to Beşiktaş is one leap, and from Beşiktaş to the national team is another. Each leap requires a player to redefine himself. The adaptability Proment praised can be an asset, but it can also become a trap if a player is shuffled between positions and never settles into a role. Stability is often more important than versatility when it comes to long-term development. There is another aspect I always want to see more clearly: transfer value and market attention. Proment said big clubs could soon track İlhan. This is a weighty statement, but also a double-edged sword. Market attention can elevate a player, but it can also misdirect his development if it comes too early. European football history is full of young players who moved to big clubs too soon and lost themselves on the bench. İlhan Fakılı's story, therefore, does not end with a call-up. It has only just begun. For a young winger, the real challenge is not being called up the first time, but becoming the man who returns a second time, then a third, and gradually a default part of the squad. What to watch next is: whether he maintains his stability in Beşiktaş colours, whether he sustains the finishing his old coach at Clermont worked so hard to build, and whether the national-team environment gives him enough time to grow, or turns him into a symbol of short-term expectation. The empty stands at Clermont now have people sitting in them. But if you ask me what is most worth waiting for, I will not look at his first goal for the national team. I will look at his next training session, when the cameras are gone, and see what he corrects.