Aziz Behich

Aziz Behich
Aziz Behich (2018)
Personnel
birthday	December 16, 1990
place of birth	Melbourne ,  Australia
size	172 cm
position	Left-back Left Midfield
Juniors
Years	station
	Meadow Park Eagles SC
	Green Gully SC
2008-2010	Melbourne Victory
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2008-2009	Green Gully SC	33 (4)
2010	Melbourne Victory	5 (0)
2010	Hume City FC	6 (1)
2010-2013	Melbourne Heart	65 (1)
2013-2018	Bursaspor	122 (6)
2013-2014	→ Melbourne Heart (loan)	24 (1)
2018-2019	PSV Eindhoven	4 (0)
2019–	Istanbul Başakşehir FK	0 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2011–?	Australia U-23	at least 5 (1)
2012–	Australia	26 (2)
1 Only league games are given. As of July 13, 2019 2 As of September 1, 2018

Aziz Behich or Aziz Eraltay (born December 16, 1990 in Melbourne ) is an Australian football player of Turkish descent.

Club career

The son of Turkish Cypriot immigrants first played in the adult sector from 2008 in the Victorian Premier League (VPL) for his youth club Green Gully SC before he was accepted into the youth team of Melbourne Victory for the newly created National Youth League at the end of the season . There he was used regularly in the following two seasons and made his debut on January 16, 2010 in a 6-2 win against Perth Glory for the professional team in the A-League . By the end of the season he came to four more appearances as a substitute, including in the Grand Final against Sydney FC , which was lost on penalties. Subsequently, he was also part of the squad for the 2010 AFC Champions League , but was not used and received no new contract beyond the end of the season. As a result, Behich played briefly for Hume City in the VPL, before he signed a short-term contract as a replacement for the injured Kristian Sarkies in July 2010 after a trial training at the newly founded A-League club Melbourne Heart . Up until this point, Behich had mainly acted as a striker, after being sent off by left full-back Dean Heffernan , Behich was withdrawn from coach John van 't Schip and was so convincing that he settled in this position and received a long-term contract.

His achievements in the following period culminated in the award as young player of the month January 2011, a nomination for the Harry Kewell Medal as U-23 footballer of the year and the appointment to the PFA Team of the Year 2011/12. In January 2013 Behich moved after 65 league appearances for Melbourne Heart to the Turkish first division club Bursaspor and signed a contract until mid-2016. After he had only come to a league appearance in the second half of the season at Bursaspor, he returned to Melbourne Heart for the 2013/14 season on loan .

For the 2014/15 season he was kept in the squad at Bursaspor. In the summer of 2018 he was signed by PSV Eindhoven , but returned to Turkey after one season with his move to Istanbul Başakşehir FK .

National team

Behich's first appointment in an Australian national team came in June 2011 when he was called up for the U-23 team against Japan. As a result, he was also used several times in the context of qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Games , but the Australian team failed in the decisive qualifying round after they had failed to score in all six games. Behich's debut for the Australian senior team followed in November 2012 when he was substituted on by national coach Holger Osieck in a friendly against South Korea . In December he took part in the qualifying tournament for the 2013 East Asian Cup with a selection consisting largely of A-League players and scored his first two goals for the senior team in the 8-0 win against Taiwan. He was also in the squad for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where Australia was eliminated in the preliminary round after two defeats against France and Peru and a draw against Denmark . Behich played all three games over the full distance and scored the winning goal for the French at the defeat in the opening game with an own goal to make it 1: 2.

Web links

• azizbehich.com - Official website of Behich
• Aziz Behich in the database of weltfussball.de
• Aziz Behich in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Aziz Behich in the Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu database (English)
• Aziz Behich in the mackolik.com database (Turkish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Beşiktaş reach agreement in principle with Melbourne Heart's Aziz Behich ". (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 6, 2013 ; accessed on July 2, 2017 (English). Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ au.fourfourtwo.com: Two More To Add Heart To Squad (July 26, 2010)
3. ↑ goal.com: Opportunity missed, opportunity found for Victory-turned-Heart man Aziz Behich (Oct. 5, 2012)
4. ↑ heraldsun.com.au: Behich wins January award as A-League Young Footballer (Feb. 2, 2011)
5. ↑ theworldgame.sbs.com.au: PFA nominates its best for 2011-2012 (May 16, 2012)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ heraldsun.com.au: Melbourne Heart's Aziz Behich sold to Turkish club Bursaspor (Jan. 30, 2013)