Sabahattin Erboğa

Sabahattin Erboğa — Biography

Sabahattin Erbuğa (1 January 1954, Kars - 25 November 1999, İzmir), former Turkish national footballer and coach. He played for Fenerbahçe Sports Club between 1975-1977. Later he played for a long time at Altay. He is considered one of the legendary footballers of the club, especially because of his success with Altay. Despite being a right-back, he used the right wing like a dynamo. This was an unusual situation for a defender at that time. At Altay in 1978, inspired by Kunta Kinte, the main character in the series Kökler, which was played on TRT at that time and was very popular, his close teammate Nevruz Şerif started calling him Kunta Kinte Sabahattin. Since the character in the series was a very naive, well-intentioned and hardworking slave, he gave this nickname to Sabahattin Erbuğa because of his dark complexion and hard work. After a while, this nickname started to be used in the stands and remained in people's memories with this nickname. His friendship with Nevruz Şerif was so close that he named his son Nevruz Eralp Erbuğa. His son grew up in Altay's youth academy and became a professional footballer. During the period when Raşit Çetiner was the technical director of Turkey's under-21 national football team, he started working as an assistant coach under Çetiner. During that time, on 25 November 1999, he died of a heart attack in his house on Yeşilyurt Ordu Street in İzmir. His funeral was held at Alsancak Hocazade Mosque on 26 November 1999, and after the noon prayer, he was buried in Özdere.