Mahmut Yılmaz

Mahmut Yılmaz — Biography

Mahmut Yılmaz was born on 6 October 1979 in Hamburg and became a professional footballer holding both German and Turkish citizenship. Standing 1.84 m tall, he played as a forward and began his football education at SC V/W Billstedt before joining Hamburger SV's youth setup at the age of 18.

After featuring for Hamburger SV's reserve side in the third-tier Regionalliga, Yılmaz was promoted to the first team by coach Frank Pagelsdorf for the 1998-99 season and made his Bundesliga debut on 16 March 1999, coming on as a substitute for Bernd Hollerbach against VfL Bochum. He earned his first start the following season as Hamburg finished third in the league, and he gained European experience coming on in a UEFA Cup tie against AS Roma. Although injury disrupted his 2001-02 campaign, he helped Hamburger SV's second team win the Oberliga Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein title.

In 2003-04 he moved to Manisaspor under coach Mustafa Denizli, scoring five goals in his first four matches and finishing the season with 11 goals, including a hat-trick against Adana Demirspor, though the club narrowly missed promotion to the Süper Lig. An injury then sidelined him for much of the following season, and after a brief return he left the club. He later played for Eintracht Norderstedt and Hamm United before retiring at the end of the 2010-11 season. Internationally, he was part of Germany's under-18 squad at the 1999 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Nigeria, and later scored against Finland while representing Germany's under-21 team during qualifying for the 2002 European Under-21 Championship.